2025-27 Montana Poet Laureate
Widely published across genres and forms, Allen Morris Jones is the author of three novels, three children’s books, a highly regarded look at the ethics of hunting, an award-winning collection of poetry, and more than 100 published personal essays, profiles, short stories, and other incidental pieces. His first novel, Last Year’s River, was selected by Barnes and Noble for its Discover Great New Writers program; his second novel, A Bloom of Bones, was recognized as a Montana Book Award honor book. His recent poetry collection, Mumblecusser, was both a High Plains Book Award winner as well as a Montana Book Award honor book. His first children’s book, Montana for Kids, won a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America. With William Kittredge, he edited The Best of Montana’s Short Fiction. He has worked as a magazine editor (Big Sky Journal), as an acquisitions editor (Lyons Press / Globe Pequot Press), small press publisher (Bangtail Press), and as a Communications Director for Montana State University. A graduate of the University of Montana in Missoula and Livingston’s Park High, he currently lives in Bozeman with his wife and teenage son.
Photo Credit: Karen Kenyon
Contact Information
Program Descriptions
We live surrounded by stories. They shape our lives and tell us who we are, where we come from, and where we might be going. Some stories unite us as communities while personal stories inform our sense of self. Who has impacted our lives? What places have shaped us?
Montana Poet Laureate Allen Morris Jones has used storytelling as a foundation for his work across several literary forms, including novels, children’s books, personal essays, and, of course, poetry. Over the course of an hour, Allen will offer a compelling presentation that includes:
- A PowerPoint slide show that describes his personal journey toward finding the essential, irreducible elements of storytelling.
- A reading from his own, autobiographical poetry, demonstrating how we can find narratives in various aspects of our own lives.
- A solicitation of stories from the audience, with prompts to help them get started telling their own stories.
At the end of his two-year tenure as poet laureate, Allen intends to compile a selection of these solicited stories into a published collection. His hope is that the larger project will demonstrate how our individual stories have helped shape the Montana of today.
No matter how old you are, people love a good story. Indeed, some of our best storytellers are children. A nine or ten-year-old, before learning self-consciousness, can offer up the purest form of a narrative.
Intended for a second to fifth grade audience, Allen will use his book Montana for Kids: The Story of Our State as a foundation for a high-altitude history of Montana, First Peoples to Lewis and Clark to gold-rush towns and cattle drives. He will then make the point that we’re all of us part of Montana’s story. Who we are and what we’re doing matter.
Allen will invite the kids to think about contributing their own tales to the ongoing story of our state. Guided by their classrooms, the children can interview parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles and caregivers, asking a set of provided questions. Where did their people come from? What did they hope for? What did they worry about? What obstacles did they overcome along the way? At the end of his presentation, Allen will offer prompts and guidelines to help the kids get started on their own storytelling journeys.