Renée Ashley | |
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| Born | Palo Alto, California, U.S. |
| Education | San Francisco State University |
| Occupations |
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Renée Ashley (born August 10, 1949) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and educator.
Presently on the faculty ofFairleigh Dickinson University and an editor ofThe Literary Review, Ashley is the author of fivecollections of poetry, twochapbooks and a novel. Her work has garnered several honours including theBrittingham Prize in Poetry,Pushcart Prize, as well as fellowships granted by theNew Jersey State Council on the Arts and theNational Endowment of the Arts. Several of her poems have been published in noted literary journals and magazines, includingPoetry,American Voice,Bellevue Literary Review,Harvard Review,Kenyon Review, andThe Literary Review.[1]
Ashley was born inPalo Alto, California and raised nearby inRedwood City.[1] Her father worked infrequently in aball bearing factory and her mother was aPBXtelephone operator and secretary; she was their only child.[2] In interviews, she describes her parents as being an "anti influence" on her literary pursuits—mentioning that she was raised in a house that had no books and that her mother believed that "if you’re reading you’re not doing anything."[2]
Ashley attendedSan Francisco State University and was graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in three majors (in French, English, and Comparative Literature) in 1979. Subsequently, she earned a Master of Arts (M.A.) in Comparative Literature from San Francisco State University in 1981.[3] Ashley came to poetry later in life and by chance. While attending a fiction writing seminar at a writer's conference atFoothill College inLos Altos Hills, California, she was inspired to start writing poetry after "wandering away" and encountering a poetry reading byJohn Logan (1923–1987).[2]
Ashley presently resides inRingwood, New Jersey[1] and is on the faculty ofFairleigh Dickinson University teaching in the university'sgraduate degree programmes for aMaster of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing (2001–present) and Master of Arts in Creative Writing and Literature for Educators (2010–present).[4][5] Since 1994, she has been on the faculty of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway, a large writers conference recently hosted byStockton University (formerly Richard Stockton College) and Murphy Writing Seminars.[3][6]
She previously taught creative writing atRamapo College (1989–1993) inMahwah, New Jersey and atRockland Center for the Arts (1985–1995) inWest Nyack, New York.[3] For five years (1997–2002), she was assistant poetry coordinator for theGeraldine R. Dodge Foundation, a not-for-profitphilanthropic organisation that gives grants to environmental and social projects, educators and artists and operatesa biennial four-day poetry festival in New Jersey that is the largest poetry event in North America.[3][7] For several years, from 2007 until 2014, she was poetry editor of Fairleigh Dickinson University's literary quarterlyThe Literary Review.[8]
The Los Angeles Review wrote ofThe View from the Body (2016): "Context is everything for meaning; there is no definition free of it. We are all in a context inextricably bound up in the definition of who we are. For better or worse, that imposes limits, especially the physical ones, with death being the ultimate defining context. However, the struggle against limits remains heroic and is better than the alternatives of apathy, acquiescence, even the embrace of oppression. The struggle against limits is what creates us and makes our beloved underdogs. We are how we respond to mortality. Renee Ashley’s collection is an intellectually brilliant banner in that battle."[9]
The Literary Review wrote ofThe View from the Body (2016): "The phantoms of Sexton, Plath, Rich, and others all informThe View from the Body, but Ashley is operating in undiscovered country, pushing and probing what the line and sentence can do when called into question. Renée Ashley’s finely tuned sensibilities allow her to experiment with language and form without sacrificing meaning and beauty."[10]
Publishers Weekly reviewed Ashley's seventh book of poetry,Because I Am the Shore I Want to Be the Sea (2013), a series ofprose poems on the subjects of "sex, courtship, fear, fatigue, loyalty, companion animals, and human regret" as "squared-off, almost blindingly vivid" and "committed to individual feeling, lyric, texture, emotional rawness, and authenticity."[11]
A six-line excerpt from Ashley's poem "First Book of the Moon" inThe Revisionist's Dream (2001) was selected for a permanent installation by artistLarry Kirkland in New York City'sPennsylvania Station.[12]
"...We dream our lives
But the rivers breathe flint and spark
And each night we believe in everything—
The shifting edge of light
And dark, the possibility of what we think we are
And what we think we see."[13]
Carved in marble, this installation features excerpts from the works of several New Jersey poets (includingWalt Whitman,William Carlos Williams, andAmiri Baraka) and was part of the renovation and reconstruction of theNew Jersey Transit section of the station completed in 2002.[12]
Ashley has released six collections of poetry and two chapbooks.
In recognition of her achievements in poetry and writing, Renée Ashley has earned the following awards and fellowships:[3]
Awards and competitions[edit]
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