BOZEMAN, Mont. — “I’m still trying to get a handle on my own work. I have been told there is a note of optimism in the work. Which I welcome, but often surprises me that that comes out,” said Montana poet laureate Allen Jones.
Gov. Greg Gianforte appointed Jones to the state’s poet laureate position in the fall of 2025, making him the advocate for poetry and literature across Montana, and sometimes even traveling outside Montana.
“It's outreach. It's advocating for poetry and Montana literature to the schools and communities. And it's also, I think, just a more visible literary ambassador,” Jones said.
Jones grew up in Livingston and graduated from the University of Montana, where he studied philosophy. But his writing journey started around the eighth grade, when he published a short story with encouragement from his English teacher.
“Writing that story was so much fun, and seeing it published was so gratifying, you know? It felt like I was doing something substantial,” he said.
Throughout his career, Jones has published a variety of works including novels, non-fiction and Montana history books for children — part of what he focuses on in his outreach as poet laureate.
“I talk about Montana history in that context. ‘Here’s our story.’ And then I encourage them to think about their story and the stories of the people around them,” Jones explained. You know, if you were to interview your dad and your mom, or your grandma and grandpa about how they came to be in Montana, how they came to be who they are, what would that story look like?”
Each poet laureate has a special project, and Jones is interested in what makes for a good story.
“We are the storytelling animal; our biology is made to tell and receive stories. I believe that on a sort of foundational level,” he explained.
He is still in the early stages of planning, but Jones would like to solicit every-day Montanans for personal stories, then compile them by the end of his tenure as poet laureate. He calls it the “Montana Storytelling Project.”
“I'm talking about poetry. I'm talking about Montana literacy. I'm also asking people to think about their life story and how to tell it. And if they are so inclined to, then work with them in shaping that story,” he said.
Sitting in an interview at Wild Joe’s in downtown Bozeman, Jones said he has been told his poems have a note of optimism.
“I’m not, by nature, an optimistic person. So, maybe my work — I’m working my way through some stuff towards a place of optimism,” he said.
Most recently, Jones published a collection of poems written over the course of 20 years, titled “Mumblecusser.” The collection, some of which was written while Jones and his wife were living in New York, explores Montana and how it is changing as well as themes of family and late-in-life fatherhood. Jones became a father at 40.
“You’re in your patterns, you’re in your ruts, and then this event happens that sort of knocks everything into another trajectory — delightfully so. I’ve welcomed every minute of it, but it does sort of take you by surprise,” he said.
Poems like “Releasing a Child” and “Mumblecusser” explore that theme. Others, like “Jump Shooting, 1986,” dig into how much the state has changed in recent years.
Montana has a rich history of poets and literary figures, going back to roughly the 1930s and 40s, Jones explained. Literary critic Leslie Fiedler taught at UM, as well as poet Richard Hugo. Livingston has seen its share of writers and poets, like Thomas McGuane, Russell Chatham and writer William Hjortsberg, he said. Ernest Hemingway also spent many years living and writing in Montana.
“I love the idea that my work, however modestly, is part of this continuum. I am working in the context of some of my literary heroes,” Jones said. “That idea tickles me, you know, and it sort of sustains me in some way if I’m having a bad day, if the work isn’t going well, you know, I think about everything that sort of came before.”
Allen Jones and author Russell Rowland will be at the Bozeman Public Library for a discussion on western literature at 6 p.m., April 9.
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