UAH hosts Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones for Conference on Common Read, Nov. 15

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (NOV 7, 2024) – Alabama Poet Laureate Ashley M. Jones will deliver the keynote address for the 2024 Conference on the Common Read, hosted by The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), on Friday, Nov. 15, from 7 to 9 p.m. in Morton Hall Room 145 on the UAH campus. The event is open to the public free of charge. UAH is a part of The University of Alabama System.

Jones will talk about the power of poetry and storytelling in the construction of identity, community and shared histories. Following the program, she will sign copies of her most recent poetry collections. Light refreshments will be served.

"Poet Laureate Jones will offer students a unique opportunity to hear from and talk with someone for whom the construction of creative texts is visible and important and valued by our state as something worth really celebrating," says Dr. Beth Boswell, lecturer and director of composition, UAH Department of English.

Jones is founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival and is the associate director of the University Honors Program at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. She holds an MFA in poetry from Florida International University, where she was a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Fellow.

Her debut poetry collection, "Magic City Gospel," won the silver medal in poetry in the 2017 Independent Publishers Book Awards. Her second book, "dark // thing," won the 2018 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry from Pleiades Press. She has been featured on news outlets such as Good Morning America, ABC News and the BBC.

Along with the UAH English department, event sponsors include the UAH Honors College; UAH Humanities Center; Dr. Mulk R. Arora Endowment in the UAH College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Calhoun Community College.

"Participating in a common read is an important way we invite students in their first semester of the Honors College to engage in scholarly discourse with one another through a shared experience," Boswell says. "The Conference on the Common Read is entirely student-organized. They come up with a conference theme, compose a call for proposals, evaluate proposals for presentation, and organize panels of papers in conversation with one another.

"This year, we've elevated that experience through our collaboration with Calhoun Community College, whose students also participated in the common read. It's been fantastic to watch these students talk to one another about the text – James McBride's 'The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store' – and their interpretation of the work without depending on an instructor to lead them in that work."

For more information on Jones and her work, visit ashleymjonespoetry.com. For more information about the 2024 Conference on the Common Read, visit uah.edu/events.