POETRY CORNER
Venus Jones
JaZzLine INSTITUTE
Poet Laureate
Venus Jones is a message mentor and helps emerging sheroes find their signature stories through the power of poetry and the healing arts. She felt abandoned by her own birth mother at the age of two, before a woman named Rose helped her rise. Thanks to the kindness of a stranger, faith in a higher power, and resiliency, Venus still seeks to give back the love she received. She’s still keeping her inner light on, even when the world around her turns dark.
Through it all, she’s been recognized as an award-winning radio personality, an accomplished actress, model, poet, and educator. She grew up in Akron, Ohio, nurtured countless emerging artists in Tampa Bay, Florida, her second home, and recently served as an associate English and Communication professor at Mission College. Her poems have appeared in several printed anthologies and online journals. Other publications include a mobile iPhone holiday app, four spoken word albums and three books entitled, She Rose, Kwanzaa: Living on Principle and Lyrics for Langston. She’s even been endorsed by the family of the legendary Langston Hughes.
She’s been a leader in the Shero movement, a TEDx presenter, and a poetry slam finalist at the Austin International Poetry Festival. Her one-woman show, “Poetic Soldier” earned her “Most Inspiring Solo Performance at the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival.” Her short play “Race and War” was featured at the Tampa Bay Theatre Festival.
Venus earned her MFA in English and Creative Writing from Mills College in 2014, and she was one of the honored commencement speakers that same year. She’s worked for two television networks including HSN, where she was a backstage coordinator, and MTV, where she was local correspondent. She’s also opened for Def Poetry on Broadway. Her image has appeared in countless commercials, in a Marvel movie, on a billboard, and it has graced the cover of Spoken Vizions magazine. Yet her greatest achievement has been finding true love and maintaining a healthy matrimony for over 20 years.
One of her favorite quotes is by Alice Walker – “The most common way people give up their power is by believing they don’t have any.”
To purchase these books and other items from Venus Jones, click on the images below.
Julian Carroll
JaZzLine INSTITUTE
Poet Laureate
Julian Carroll is a graduate of California State University at Sacramento, Jazz historian, poet and archivist. He began reading and reciting poetry in the 6th grade. Julian was eventually introduced to all the great Black poets: Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, Counte Cullen, Phyliss Wheatly and some of the Greek classics.
Julian started writing poetry in high school and continued straight through college. At the time, he was listening to Marvin X, Amiri Baraka, The Last Poets and Gill Scott Heron. Extensive listening to Jazz albums by the Jazz masters informed many of his poems, which he eventually recited with assorted Jazz bands. Through this journey, he met some of the greatest poets in the Bay Area and from around the world.
Julian has done extensive research through interviews, photography, audio and video recordings of Jazz concerts, collecting records, books, periodicals, newspaper articles, magazines, videos and Jazz recordings over the radio. He created a Jazz history program for a middle school and junior high school history class based on seven principles of jazz music to foster academic improvement. Julian presented a Jazz history lecture at the San Francisco Institute of Art.
He has worked extensively with Jazz vibraphonist Yanci Taylor, emceeing his concerts and documenting his Jazz story. He deeply values his friendships and mentorships with the great poets Ghasem Bantamutu, Reggie Locket and Will Alexander.
Julian performed on a recording with the Roy Brown Quartet and presented his original poem, “You Were There at the Movies,” which was performed by the Peacocks. He has performed on the KCSM Jazz station’s See's Candy Live Recording and as the Featured Jazz Poet at the Berkeley Jazz Poetry Festival, both with the Yanci Taylor Quartet.
Julian’s poem “Nubian Site,” was published in DRUMVOICES Revue (Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville) in 2000. In addition, “River” is a poem from the book “In Dappled Sunlight;” published by the National Library of Poetry in 1997 (page 139).
