Renée Ashley

Renée Ashley (born August 10, 1949) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, and educator.

Presently on the faculty of Fairleigh Dickinson University and an editor of The Literary Review, Ashley is the author of five collections of poetry, two chapbooks and a novel. Her work has garnered several honours including the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, Pushcart Prize, as well as fellowships granted by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment of the Arts. Several of her poems have been published in noted literary journals and magazines, including Poetry, American Voice, Bellevue Literary Review, Harvard Review, Kenyon Review, and The Literary Review.

Life and career

Ashley was born in Palo Alto, California and raised nearby in Redwood City. 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." Ashley came to poetry later in life and by chance. While attending a fiction writing seminar at a writer's conference at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California, she was inspired to start writing poetry after "wandering away" and encountering a poetry reading by John Logan (1923–1987). Since 1994, she has been on the faculty of the Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway, a large writers conference recently hosted by Stockton University (formerly Richard Stockton College) and Murphy Writing Seminars.

She previously taught creative writing at Ramapo College (1989–1993) in Mahwah, New Jersey and at Rockland Center for the Arts (1985–1995) in West Nyack, New York. For several years, from 2007 until 2014, she was poetry editor of Fairleigh Dickinson University's literary quarterly The Literary Review.

Critical reception The Los Angeles Review wrote of The 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."

The Literary Review wrote of The View from the Body (2016): "The phantoms of Sexton, Plath, Rich, and others all inform The 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."

Publishers Weekly reviewed Ashley's seventh book of poetry, Because I Am the Shore I Want to Be the Sea (2013), a series of prose 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."

Poetry in Penn Station A six-line excerpt from Ashley's poem "First Book of the Moon" in The Revisionist's Dream (2001) was selected for a permanent installation by artist Larry Kirkland in New York City's Pennsylvania Station. "...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." Carved in marble, this installation features excerpts from the works of several New Jersey poets (including Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and Amiri Baraka) and was part of the renovation and reconstruction of the New Jersey Transit section of the station completed in 2002.

Fiction 2003: Someplace Like This (Permanent Press)

Essays 2019: Minglements: Prose on Poetry and Life (Del Sol Press)

Honors and awards In recognition of her achievements in poetry and writing, Renée Ashley has earned the following awards and fellowships:

Awards and competitions

2012: Subito Press Book Award, Winner 2009: New American Press Chapbook Competition, Winner 2008: X. J. Kennedy Award in Poetry, Texas Review Press, Winner 2007: Runner-up, American Literary Review Poetry Contest 2006: Black Warrior Review Poetry Contest, First place 2006: Hill-Stead Museum Sunken Garden Poetry competition, Winner 1999: Pushcart Prize (Volume XXIV) 1998: Charles Angoff Award, The Literary Review 1997: American Literary Review Poetry Contest 1996: Chelsea Award for Poetry 1992: Fourth Annual Kenyon Review Award for Literary Excellence 1992‑1993: Special Mention, Pushcart Prize XVII 1991: Brittingham Prize in Poetry, University of Wisconsin Press 1990: Judith's Room Emerging Talent Competition 1990: Kenyon Review Award for Literary Excellence for Emerging Writers 1989: Robert H. Winner Award (Co‑winner), Poetry Society of America 1989: Open Voice Award: Poetry, Writers Voice, West Side Y, NY, NY 1988: Eve of St. Agnes Award, Negative Capability, Mobile, AL 1988: Ruth Lake Memorial Award, Runner‑up, Poetry Society of America, NY 1987: Ruth Lake Memorial Award, Poetry Society of America, New York, NY 1986: Washington Prize in Poetry, Word Works Inc., Washington, DC 1985: Cecil Hackney Literary Award, Birmingham‑Southern College 1980: Milton Award, San Mateo County Arts Council, CA 1978: Wings Award

Fellowships

2017: Associate Artist, Atlantic Center for the Arts 2013: Fellow, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts 2012: Fellow, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts 2008: Associate Artist, Atlantic Center for the Arts 2006: Full Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center 2005: Distinguished Poet in Residence, Wichita State University, Kansas 2003–2004: Fellowship in Poetry, New Jersey State Council on the Arts 1997: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry 1994–1995: Fellowship in Poetry, New Jersey State Council on the Arts 1994: Fellow, MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH 1993: Fellow, MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH 1993: Grant, Poets & Writers, teaching 1990: Fellow, Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY; 1990: Fellowship: Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation 1989: Fellowship in Poetry, New Jersey State Council on the Arts 1989: Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation/Department of Higher Education 1989: Grant: College Foundation, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Summer Institute Series for New Jersey Faculty 1986‑87: Writer‑in‑Residence, Rockland Center for the Arts, West Nyack, NY 1986: Grant, New York State Council on the Arts, Residency 1986: Grant, Poets & Writers, Inc., New York, NY, Teaching 1985: Fellowship in Prose, New Jersey State Council on the Arts