AMP Founder/Editor-in-Chief
Timothy Prolific Jones is a poet, writer, hip-hop aficionado, and activist who hails from Long Island, New York. He is best known for being an ambassador of what he calls the Black Long Island Experience, as his family is one of the oldest African-American families in Nassau County, with a bloodline tied to both of the island’s American Indian reservations.
Timothy began performing in the New York City poetry scene in 2002 as a college student, and his love for the craft of writing often left poems written vertically in his spiral notebooks. While a student at Hunter College, he co-founded a spoken word/hip-hop fusion group called The Cataclysm, which subsequently produced showcases, released an independent album, and toured local colleges.
In 2003, he joined The Blackout Arts Collective, an award winning community grassroots organization that utilizes the arts a vehicle for social justice and education. He embarked on Blackout’s “Lyrics on Lockdown” tour, performing and conducting workshops in poetry cafes, nightclubs, halfway houses, juvenile detention centers, and prisons, including Rikers Island. Through Blackout, he also co-instructed an arts based political education course at Freedom Academy in Brooklyn, and guest lectured at the Lyrics on Lockdown course taught at The Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University. Blackout gave him an opportunity to edit and design a poetry anthology, as well as produce and perform in three years worth of showcases. Ultimately, he was appointed to Blackout’s Board of Directors in 2007, where he served as co-chairman for two years.
Timothy founded André Maurice Press, an independent book publishing company, in 2004, following in the footseps of Dr. Haki Madhubuti, Jessica Care Moore, and Willie Perdomo. The aim of founding this company was to give literary voice to the spoken word/hip-hop generation. The company’s second published book, One Mic: A Lyrics on Lockdown Anthology, was released in partnership with New York University, The New School, Columbia University, Rikers Island, and Blackout Arts Collective. One Mic was recently listed on New York Public Library’s Stuff for the Teen Age 2009 as one of the top 100 books for youth.
Poetry has allowed him to perform throughout New York State, and in several regions of the country in open mics, slams, hip-hop showcases, and speaking engagements at venues including The Nuyorican Poets Café, Bar 13, The Bowery Poetry Club, Acentos Writers Workshop, Mike Geffner’s Inspired Word, The Soundbites Poetry Festival, Cornell University, The New School, Hostos College, Lehman College, Baruch College, City College, Hunter College, Cooper Union, Columbia University, New York University, SUNY Stonybrook, Rikers Island, Oakhill Juvenile Detention Center, Riverside Church, Queens Museum, Bronx Museum, the Northstar Foundation Benefit in 2003, and the 2003 Union Square Awards. His poetry has been recently featured in Gunplay, a graphic novel created by Jorge Vega and published through Platinum Studios. As a lover of hip-hop and participant in the culture, Timothy also co-produced The Bandwagon: Director's Cut by Queens based emcee SoSoon.
He is the author of a chapbook, Explosion of a Dream Deferred (2004), Prolific (2006), an ebook titled Abu Simbel, and is currently working on his next two books of poetry, Musaic, and The Seventh Seal.
You can follow him on twitter @tprolificjones, watch his videos on Youtube & Vimeo, and read his blogs at Corporate B-Boyism.
