Wess Mongo Jolley

Short Bio

Wess Mongo Jolley is a poet and poetry promoter living in Vermont.  He produces and hosts the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel podcast (http://performancepoetry.indiefeed.com), and is Founder and President of the Performance Poetry Preservation Project (http://poetrypreservation.org).  His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Off The Coast, PANK, The New Verse News, Danse Macabre, The November 3rd Club, The Legendary, decomP, and in the Write Bloody Press book The Good Things About America. He lives on a ten acre parcel in rural Vermont, with his partner, various members of  his clan, a failing vegetable garden, and an unidentified monster that has been known to chase visitors out of the woods if they dare to venture too far from the light.  He is an urban poet, trapped in a rural body. He can be found on the internet at http://mongopoet.com, and at mongo@indiefeed.com


Long Bio

Wess Mongo Jolley is a poet and poetry promoter, who spends his time moving between his home in rural Vermont, and his adopted city of Manhattan.

Mongo's first excursion into the internet poetry world began in the 1995, when he created the website ginzy.com as a tribute to the great poet Allen Ginsberg. The site quickly grew to become the most respected and comprehensive source about Ginsberg on the internet. At the time of Ginsberg's death in 1997, the site was selected by major media sources as the primary resource for information on the poet, and Mongo became key in organizing readings to celebrate Ginsberg's life, all across the country. Ginzy.com was closed in 2001, as Google and other search engines made the clearinghouse nature of the site unnecessary.

In 2006, Mongo founded the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel, which features the best spoken word artists in the field today.  He remains the proprietor and host of the podcast, which, over the past six years has featured more than 300 poets in the almost 1,000 episodes the show has released. As of late 2011, the channel boasted a total download count of  over seven million episodes distributed.  The show is consistently listed as one of the top three poetry podcasts in the iTunes music store, and can be found at http://performancepoetry.indiefeed.com.

In 2010 Mongo, along with Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz and Thomas Bouliane, founded the Performance Poetry Preservation Project (P4).  This partnership between the poetry slam community and the academic world has ambitions to collect, preserve, protect, and provide access to the recorded history of the poetry slam movement.  Incorporated as a private non-profit in 2011, the Project is in the process of securing funding and building relationships for a roll out in 2012.  The P4 website can be found at http://poetrypreservation.org.

In another life, Mongo is a Certified Records Manager and an information management professional with over 30 years experience in the field. For the past 17 years he has been the Records Manager at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he has also served as the Interim Manager of the Special Collections Library at the College. In these two roles, he has indulged a keen interest and built extensive experience in both historical preservation issues, as well as information technology, data system design, and digital record keeping. Prior to his work at Dartmouth College, Mongo spent a half dozen years as a Crisis Counselor and Data Management Coordinator for the California Runaway Hotline in Sacramento, California.

Mongo's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Off The Coast, PANK, The New Verse News, Danse Macabre, The November 3rd Club, The Legendary, decomP, and in the Write Bloody Press book The Good Things About America. Audio versions of his poetry have been featured on the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel, and Cloudy Day Art. He has performed his work at many open mics across the country, including The Green Mill, The Bowery Poetry Club, The LouderArts Project, and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. His first book and CD is planned for 2012.

In between all of these things, Mongo characterizes himself as a polyamorous queer faerie pagan poet bear, living happily on a ten acre mountain in very rural Vermont, along with his partner of a dozen years and an extensive chosen family that he cherishes. He can be contacted at mongo@mongopoet.com.