By Troy D. Sides

Marshall "Soulful" Jones embracing the moment prior to slamming his next piece of poetry Friday evening. Jones was one of three poets to perform on the Mesa State campus as part of Unity Fest.

“I’m human,” said Marshall Jones, “so here’s my humanness.”
That statement encapsulates Marshall “Soulful” Jones’ pursuit of the art of poetry. Jones, 25, and two other poetry “Slammers” that make up the slam group “Words With a Pulse” presented their poetry as well as their humanness to the Mesa State campus on Friday as part of the annual Unity Fest event.
“Sometimes people have certain situations,” Jones said, “and all they ever really wanted was someone to just listen to them for three minutes, and a lot of times we don’t really get that undivided attention. What I enjoy about performance poetry is it gives me that. You have complete, undivided attention, just people listenin’ to what you have to say.”
Jones, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., has lived most of his life apart from poetry, originally considering a career in the hip-hop industry, a pursuit that paid little dividends. In a home with no father and little stability, Jones was beginning to run out of options as to how to make sense of what he was doing.
“I had a lot of baggage,” he said. “I had a broken heart from a lost relationship, and the effects of living in a broken home trickled from my mom down to me. There was so much internal stuff that I had to release. I had never really healed from that.”
Jones eventually reached the point where he found himself on the Brooklyn Bridge, considering jumping. When he ran into someone who mentioned a poets’ café in Manhattan, everything changed.
“That night I heard five poets at the Nuyorican Poets’ Café,” he said. “I remember hearin’ them spit, and then hearin’ how the crowd responded really inspired me to have a forum where my words will matter. Literally, from that point on it was full force.”
Jones went on writing and within the next year had met Frankie “Hidden Legacy” Soto and Adam “Shadokat” Bowser, with whom he now travels the country with, pouring their hearts and souls into thousands of people.
“Poetry is a very healing thing,” Jones said. “It’s been very therapeutic for me, a way of release. I’m human, so here’s my humanness. I’ve had struggles, I’ve had issues, and I’ve continued to grow. Poetry allows me a forum to release those struggles and continue to grow.”
This Friday marked the second time “Words with a Pulse” has visited Mesa State. Gathered inside a tent and shielded from the wind on a dreary, cloudy day, Mesa State students sat in awe listening to the first two Slammers, Soto and Bowser. The New York natives then engraved in poetic form their experiences, struggles, and perspectives into the minds of those listening.
“I feel like everything I’ve experienced is for a reason,” said Jones, who would fold his hands over his mouth while his friends slammed, anticipating his moment. “Like I’m genetically hardwired to love my dad, but him being where he is, that’s where he belongs. If he had been in my life I might not have learned the same lessons that I’ve learned. But I feel like I have this karmic relationship because if it weren’t for poetry, I don’t know where I’d be.”
With Bowser having finished his first poem and the crowd applauding him to his seat, the stage now belonged to Jones. As he approached the microphone, a gust of wind found its way through the open flap in the back, filling the tent and rushing over the tall Brooklyn boy that now towered over his audience. As the wind rushed past, Jones simply lifted his arms, spreading them wide, as though releasing all his struggles to the wind before releasing them to his audience. The Brooklyn Bridge, his father, his “baggage” – all of it seemed completely gone. His smile seemed as wide as the reach of his arms. He then stepped to the mic, and overwhelmed the howl of the wind with his heart.
“I wanna be able to leave a message of triumph over adversity,” Jones said, “never settling, never believing that it’s ever over. Life is never over. A lot of times people just wanna throw in the towel, but I always try to put a light at the end of every tunnel. We always have our own personal, internal power to make a difference.”
To learn more about Words with a Pulse you can visit their website at www.wordswithapulse.com.