Jessica Winnie
Everything I Am took shape throughout a decade involving personal loss and a turbulent ride in a drastically changing America. Her poetry was written in fleeting moments: scribbled on the back of bills, written in the middle of the night, texted to herself – with her demanding life there was not much time to write.
A mother of six, sixth grade educator and entrepreneur.
Jessica was born to an activist single mom who moved her from the Midwest to Oakland where she attended a Black Panther pre-school. She returned to North Minneapolis to a family and community involved in changing politics and racial inequalities and committed to social justice. As a young girl, her mother and adoptive father encouraged Jessica to explore the world through extended visits with her public health missionary grandparents in India and relatives who were medical volunteers in Guatemala. Her father, Rob, who is a poet, along with a compassionate seventh grade teacher, Flory, encouraged her to start writing when she was twelve to “help find the magic inside me!”
Jessica is involved in organizing an annual Poetry Open Mic for youth, performing at Tangible Thoughts (a platform founded by two black women from Minnesota who aim to strengthen the African American Community through art, holding space, conversation, and activism), the bi-monthly multi-genre Liberation Cabaret! and other poetry events in the Twin Cities, Phoenix, and Poet’s Passage in Puerto Rico.
Twitter: EverythingIAm3
Instagram: everythingiamjw
A mother of six, sixth grade educator and entrepreneur.
Jessica was born to an activist single mom who moved her from the Midwest to Oakland where she attended a Black Panther pre-school. She returned to North Minneapolis to a family and community involved in changing politics and racial inequalities and committed to social justice. As a young girl, her mother and adoptive father encouraged Jessica to explore the world through extended visits with her public health missionary grandparents in India and relatives who were medical volunteers in Guatemala. Her father, Rob, who is a poet, along with a compassionate seventh grade teacher, Flory, encouraged her to start writing when she was twelve to “help find the magic inside me!”
Jessica is involved in organizing an annual Poetry Open Mic for youth, performing at Tangible Thoughts (a platform founded by two black women from Minnesota who aim to strengthen the African American Community through art, holding space, conversation, and activism), the bi-monthly multi-genre Liberation Cabaret! and other poetry events in the Twin Cities, Phoenix, and Poet’s Passage in Puerto Rico.
Twitter: EverythingIAm3
Instagram: everythingiamjw
