Sally Ashton is a poet, writer, teacher, and editor of the
DMQ Review, an online journal featuring poetry and art. She is author of
Some Odd Afternoon, BlazeVOX, 2010, and a prose poem collection,
Her Name Is Juanita, Kore Press, 2009. Both books received Pushcart Prize nominations.
These Metallic Days was published in 2005 as part of Main Street Rag’s
Editor’s Choice Chapbook Series. Poems also appear in
An Introduction to the Prose Poem, and Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes, as well as journals such as Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics, 5am, Mississippi Review and Poet Lore.
In 2006, Ashton produced and directed the first
California Poets Festival for Poetry Center San Jose at History Park, as well as a second NEA sponsored festival in 2007, with upwards of 200 in attendance. She earned her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches creative writing and composition at her alma mater, San José State University, as well as through a variety of workshops. She is the recipient of an Artist Fellowship, Poetry, from Arts Council Silicon Valley.
Ashton will take the two-year post on April 1, 2011, the first day of National Poetry Month. She is the second poet laureate to be appointed.