ArtLit w/ Thank You Books: Ashley Jones

The BMA and Thank You Books are pleased to offer another installment of Art Lit. Together with Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones, they will be launching Ashley’s much-anticipated fourth collection of poetry, Lullaby for the Grieving. 

Journeying through landscapes of Alabama, the Middle Passage and Underground Railroad, interior spaces of loss and love, and her father’s garden, Jones constructs both an elegy for her father and a celebration of the sacred exuberance and audacity of life. Featuring poems from her tenure as Alabama’s first Black and youngest Poet Laureate, Lullaby for the Grieving finds calm in unimaginable storms and attempts to listen for the sounds of healing. A signing will follow the discussion.

Ashley M. Jones served as the first Black and youngest Poet Laureate of Alabama from 2022–2026. She is the author of three previous collections of poetry, including Reparations Now!, longlisted for the PEN Voelker Poetry Award. Jones and her work have been featured by Poetry, Good Morning America, the BBC, the New York Times, and other publications. Jones holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is currently a PhD student in English at Old Dominion University. She is the founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival in Birmingham, Alabama.