BIO

Joe Jablonski, known as The Walking Mall Poet, is the typewriting street poet of Old Town Winchester. Using one of thirty typewriters in his collection, Joseph sets up in the Winchester, VA Walking Mall and produces on-the-spot poetry by request for strangers, friends and passerbys. A professional street poet since February of 2019, Joseph originally was born and grew up on Long Island, New York. He mastered the structure of poetry after prematurely leaving college in Washington, DC, writing profusely to cope with the fallout of his decision. Through this, he later produced Dropout, a chapbook interpreting the liberating of the mind from stereotypical structures. Now, he values building relationships in the Shenandoah Valley as a public community artist, and encourages art of all mediums.

Joseph’s poetry often revolves around the themes of infinity and eternity, often seizing on the idealism of the beautiful moments in our lives and striving to make even the smallest of requests shine like the sun. He often writes with slant rhyme, inspired by spoken word and rap rhyme structures, with poems usually flowing across the page in free verse. His poetry conveys concepts of sacrifice, salvation and love into everyday themes and language. His poetry is also a practice in hyper-empathy, using the moment to try to place himself as fully as possible in another & answer, in each request “What does this person need in a poem?”

When not writing, Joseph works in the local nonprofit community to build connections between agencies and increase collaboration towards lifting more families out of poverty. He also will be found doing DIY repairs to his collection of typewriter machines while listening to Meaningwave, an inspirational genre of lofi music layered with metered, philosophical spoken word.

PRESS

• Newspaper

  • “Walking Mall Poet works to create historic art” by Matt Welch. The Winchester Star, 13 April 2020.

• Podcasts

  • “The Walking Mall Poet: Kendrick Lamar’s Bars, How To Write Better, and Understanding People's Meaning Systems (Ep. 119)” Auxoro, 19 August 2020.

PRODUCTS

• Entertainment

  • Typewriter Poetry Commissions

  • Morning Words Show (Mon-Sat 7AM on Twitch)

  • With Ink Typewriter Poetry

• Teaching

  • Creative Writing

  • Poetry

  • Art Therapy

• Collaborations

  • Shenandoah Arts Council

  • Project Write - Summer Young Writers’ Workshop

  • 1455 Literary Arts Literary Festival - Attendee 2019,

SOCIALS

INSTAGRAM - over 600 followers and growing!

FACEBOOK

TWITCH

YOUTUBE