Magic City Poetry Festival Season has arrived!

Executive Director, Ashley M. Jones

The annual Magic City Poetry Festival has arrived, and you can learn more about it and coming events from this fantastic feature piece by Jesse Chambers for Magic City Ink. A few excerpts:

In the popular mind, poets are often stereotyped as idealistic, otherworldly types who live — and write — solely in a world of their own fantasies.

But not Birmingham poet Ashley M. Jones.

“My poetry is about real life,” Jones said. “I write about myself, my family, my God, my state, the country in which I live.”

One should not turn to her work for cheap comforts, either.

“I write the truth — there is no room, in my mind, for sugar coating or avoiding what some folks think is difficult,” she said. “If I have something to say about lynching, I’m writing about lynching. If I have something to say about love, I’m writing about love.” 

Jones is a young writer  — she’s only 30 — but is also very confident, not just in her work but in her very being.

“At the root of it all is a deep commitment to spirit and to authenticity — I listen for what it is I need to say, and I say that thing as Ashley M. Jones,” she said. “I am enough, in life and on page.”

The Magic City Poetry Festival will include zoom and virtual events open to the entire community, wherever they may live. And it is free.

It’s a Magic City Poetry Festival annual tradition to host a reader who speaks truth, power, and justice into the space of Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Remembrance, This year, they are thrilled to host poet and creator Faylita Hicks. The reading will take place between 4:00 and 6:00 pm Central Standard Time on April 3rd!

It is free and open to the public. You can register for this event right here.

Other exciting events to add to your National Poetry Month celebration include conversations, poetry readings, workshops, and open mics.