Spokane’s own Mona Lake Jones: Healing with words, affirming Black identity
Mona Lake Jones got her start as a renowned poet at the urging of Essence magazine in 1990. But truly, it was the nurture of Calvary Baptist Church and the Black Spokane community she grew up in during the 1940s and 1950s that gave her the sense of value, confidence, and cultural grounding we now hear in her warm, expressive delivery of poetic verse. Her words are like a balm – soft, wise and affirming – a salve to the soul of Black identity.