Vernon J. Davis jr. has been writing poetry since the early seventies. He was first inspired by Langston Hughes's poem "Impasse", which started his journey and adventure into the world of poetry and the spoken word.Vernon's very first published poem,"Beautiful Black Woman"(the basis for his poetry book) came out in 1978 in a magazine called Black Forum. More poetry followed in other magazines like SoulWord and Dawn, a magazine supplement to the Los Angeles Sentinel, an African-American newspaper.Mr.