ASHLEY HOWELL BUNN

Ashley Howell Bunn (she/they) completed her MFA in poetry through Regis University and holds a MA in Literature from Northwestern University. Their work has appeared in many places both in print and online. Their first chapbook, in coming light, was published in 2022 by Middle Creek Publishing and their second chapbook, Living Amends—coauthored with Alexander Shalom Joseph, is forthcoming through Galileo Press . Their work has been supported by Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and Sundress Publications. She is an adjunct instructor of English at the Community College of Denver and the Youth Program Coordinator at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She is a certified somatic coach and yoga guide, and she offers somatic writing workshops in-person and virtually. When she isn’t writing, she is practicing yoga, running in the sunshine, playing with her kids, or daydreaming and staring off into space. 

BOOKS

burning, breaking, building // South Broadway Press (Forthcoming)

Living Amends (with Alexander Shalom Joseph) // Galileo Press (Forthcoming)

in coming light // Middle Creek Publishing

ONLINE PUBLICATIONS

Bread in the air // South Broadway Press

my ghost considers music // South Broadway Press

celestials: or what we give the dead // Twenty Bellows

a bridge collapses and there is a poem about a thread breaking // Twenty Bellows

cicada arcana & 12 // anti-heroin chic

ONLINE FEATURES

Ashley Howell Bunn Talks Life, Death, and Poetry // Mulberry Literary

Meet Ashley Howell Bunn // Bold Journey

To my son: You’ve taught me so much about learning to live in the spaces in-between // Colorado Sun

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

South Broadway Press interviewed Ashley Howell Bunn to get to know the author of the forthcoming full-length poetry collection burning, breaking, building a little better.

SBP: WHAT IS FUELING YOUR CREATIVITY RIGHT NOW? WHERE DO YOU FEEL AT YOUR MOST CREATIVE?

AHB: Right now, children are my biggest inspiration. My children. the children I teach through Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and the children I see through my screen across the world. In these heavy times, it is the joy and resilience in children that is bringing me hope and light. They are the hope and the light.

SBP: WHAT MADE YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH POETRY? WHO DO YOU HOPE FINDS YOUR POETRY? WHO IS YOUR ART FOR?

AHB: I feel like I’ve always been in love with poetry. I started writing poems the moment I could put words to air. Poetry is in us all, but I think some people feel called to capture and share it. My first poetic love was Sylvia Plath when I was a teenager, but then I found Gwendolyn Brooks, and Mary Oliver, and Jean Valentine, and Eileen Myles and my world kept opening. I’m still discovering so much, and I’m so grateful for it. Poetry opens us to each other and the world, and I hope my poetry finds whoever needs it. My intentions are to share and connect about the importance of somatic healing, recovery, the cycles of grief, and the intimacies of parenthood. And, I think the power in poetry is that everyone can take something from it; it speaks to the universal through specificity.

SBP: IF YOUR WRITING WERE A KEY, WHAT DOOR WOULD IT UNLOCK, AND WHAT WOULD YOUR READERS FIND ON THE OTHER SIDE?

AHB: Again, I think all poetry is a door to the universal or collective experience of existing- spiritually and corporeally. I hope that my poetry is another key to unlock this, and that when people open the door, they see themselves. They see everyone. They see the collective and that we are all connected. Like the analogy of the waves and the ocean. When we are waves, we look around and think we are all separate, individual, when in reality, we are the ocean. I hope we can all see the ocean.

SBP: WHAT POEM IN YOUR BOOK WENT TO A PLACE YOU WEREN’T EXPECTING, OR WHICH WAS THE MOST/LEAST CHALLENGING TO WRITE?

AHB: 90 in 90 was the first poem I wrote for this book, and the first burning haibun I wrote. This was a difficult poem to write- it started as an essay, and then a prose poem, and it just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t until I found the Burning Haibun form that I started to find what I was trying to share. I wanted to speak to fractals, these repetitions we experience in slightly different ways each time. How we can see our own growth and healing through these cycles of birth and death and recovery.

SBP: WHAT HAS BROUGHT YOU JOY THIS LAST YEAR?

AHB: So many small moments. Watching my kids laugh, seeing a student sharing a poem for the first time. A sunflower growing through a crack in the concrete, art on the wall of the underpass, holding my partner’s hand, seeing my friends succeed. It’s the small moments that fill me with joy.

SBP: WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT OBSESSION?

AHB: I have so many obsessions: poetry, yoga, polyvagal theory, neurodiversity, Grey’s Anatomy. I watch A LOT of Grey’s Anatomy haha. The world is just so interesting and people are so interesting, I can’t stop finding new things to obsess over. And comfort shows are good to have. .  🙂

SBP: WHAT MAKES SOMETHING HARD TO WRITE OR CREATE?

AHB: Overwhelm is what always gets me. Our society does not value creativity, and so we have to find our own time and place to let ourselves make art, in whatever way that happens. Capitalism focuses on productivity: how can you be productive at all times? How can you monetize what brings you joy? This is killing us. We are born to sing and dance and write poems and make beautiful things.  We are all so tired from simply trying to live in this late-stage capitalist hellscape, that it is hard to create. We deserve rest; we have the divine right to create. 

SBP: WHAT IS THE VALUE OF WRITING AND ART IN THE CURRENT STATE OF THE WORLD?

AHB: We have to keep writing in the face of oppression. Toni Morrison speaks to this beautifully, “Now is precisely the time when artists go to work.” There is a reason that dictators attack artists and writers. It is through art that we find our value and connection to the universal. Oppression feeds off of individualism. The poets of the world expose the threads that braid us together. Art helps us remember our collective beauty, even in the darkest shadow of fascism.