I started writing poetry back in 7th grade, when I was 13 years old. It was all thanks to local mentors and poets Kwabena Nixon and Muhibb Dyer, who came up to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary and wowed a gymnasium-full of angsty, hormonal, middle school peers.  I have not stopped writing since then, accumulating 52 composition books full of stories, journal entries, poems, songs, whatever my brain can regurgitate onto the page.

 

My style of writing naturally changes every time a new year or season begins.  I am a coffee poet in the winter time, a nature poet in springtime, an adventurous poet in thesummer, and a nostalgic punk rock poet in fall.  Wintertime is also what I call my

“Van Gogh phase” where seasonal depression shrouds over me and coffee shops are my favorite anesthetic: Fuel Cafe, Humboldt Colectivo, and so on.

 

Everything starts to beautifully grow back after a brutally cold season and in springtime I venture to Riverside Park by the river with a muse for accompaniment. The naked trees, Milwaukee River's rhapsodical rush of water, and ominous clouds above--this is my comfort zones.  The temperature amplifies during Milwaukee’s summer and I go out to quench my adventurous thirst for fun of drinking, all-night flings, hookah bars, and local festivities.  Fall is the season where I reflect on such a great era of being young, and it's also my birthday time, September 26th.  I love to sit on my bedroom floor, read Swamp Thing and Daredevil comics while listening to Iron Maiden.  My autumnal pseudonym is the Aquatik Pterodactyloid.  Nostalgia brings my past teenaged angst full-bloom out of me.

 

I have self-published my first poetry book, four years in the making, entitled Club Noir.  It is a grandiose illustration of how I generally see Milwaukee, its coffee shops, the neighbors and its people--MY PEOPLE.

 

You can purchase the 52-page book by PayPal online here at Relevant Milwaukee or in person.  Contact me via email (kjprodigy@gmail.com) or Facebook (Kavon Cortez Jones).  

 

Here is an excerpt below of one a poem featured in the book entitled “Paris of the Midwest.”  

 

I can honestly say, Crème City, that you are the Paris of the Midwest  

If your arch-nemesis Chicago has something to say about it

call up some Packers fans to tee-pee its Sears . . . uhhh I mean Willis Towers

with rolls of cheese.  

 

I’ll take your cheese curds over a Chi-town style hot dog any day 

Your smooth-sailing Marquette Interchange gripping Harleys

gives you more Motown than the Motor City of Detroit 

Henry Ford’s trucks are mediocre compared to your motorcycles

 

You put the SLAM in my poetry . . . You put the SLAM in this poem.  

 

I feel like a million-walking when I walk your streets.

I love you, Milwaukee--

KJ