Ashley M. Jones

Surely, heaven is a place where men can't make anyplace
a dangerous corner—

surely, there, a smile is a smile and not a taunt.

-excerpt from "Oil Change," published in Reparations Now! Copyright © 2021 by Ashley M. Jones

In an email newsletter from the Washington Post: "Ashley M. Jones has been appointed the Poet Laureate of Alabama. She is the first Black person and, at 31, the youngest poet to hold the position since Alabama created it in 1930. Her new book, "Reparations Now!," offers a diverse, complex collection of poems in response to historical and contemporary racism. In a few lines, she can slip from weary to witty to wary – but never defeated."