The abridged version.

Jon Sands is a winner of the 2018 National Poetry Series, selected for his second book, It’s Not Magic (Beacon Press, 2019). He is also the author of The New Clean (Write Bloody, 2011). His work has been featured in the New York Times, published in The Millions, Hanging Loose, Lumina, Muzzle, Rattle, The Rattling Wall from PEN Center USA, and others, as well as anthologized in The Best American Poetry. He is a facilitator with the Dialogue Arts Project and the cohost of The Poetry Gods podcast. He teaches weekly writing workshops for adults at Bailey House, and HIV/AIDS service center in East Harlem. Though he tours extensively as a poet, he lives in Brooklyn.

I have been bringing writers to the Bronx to perform for our high school students for the past four years. In that time, I have never seen a poet who commanded the students’ attention like Jon.

Bronx Academy of Letters; Elana Bell, writer-in-residence and writers’ forum coordinator