The Alabama Writers’ Forum
The Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, works to cultivate our state’s literary culture. We do that through supporting writers at all stages. We encourage our young writers to find their creative voice through the Father Goose Poetry Festival for Kids!–and through our Alabama High School Literary Arts Awards. We support the work of our state’s literary community through our Alabama Authors Directory, First Draft magazine, and other programming and opportunities for writers across the state. And we celebrate our state’s rich literary legacy through the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. We are, above all, a community of writers united by our desire to advance the literary arts in Alabama. If that describes you — join us! There are many ways to get involved.
Naked Young Woman in Front of the Mirror
Naked Young Woman in Front of the Mirror By Jessica Jones Negative Capability Press, 2024 Paperback: $16 Genre: Poetry Reviewed by Eleanor Boudreau The title of Jessica Jones’ new book, Naked Young Woman in Front of the Mirror, prefigures poems of both self-revelation and self-reflection. “Do you wanna see / my secret hiding spot?” the speaker asks in an early childhood poem. And, yes, of course we do! As the collection progresses, the speaker gets older, but she never loses her childlike sense of wonder or commitment to showing the reader her most cherished places and memories. Yet Jones’ title is not as unabashedly confessional as it might (at first) appear, because it comes from a sixteenth-century work of art— “Naked Young Woman in Front of the Mirror” is the title of a painting by Venetian master Giovanni Bellini completed in 1515. In Jones’ poem of the same title, a lover’s fascination with the speaker’s flesh is compared to the painter’s attention to his subject: He thinks my body is Renaissance perfect. No small supermodel bones to [...]
