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When I speak of myself well...and in the third person...it tends to sound like this....Jon Sands is a poet living in New York City. In his first year of slam competition he was a member of the LouderARTS New York City poetry slam team, the youngest person ever to do so. Subsequently, he earned position as a finalist at the National Poetry Slam in Austin, TX. Jon has toured throughout North America performing and conducting workshops from university theatres, to dimly lit pubs, to Manhattan needle exchange centers. He is one-fourth of the nationally acclaimed electricity-fest, The SpillJoy Ensemble. He is also currently the Director of Poetry and Arts Education Programming at the Positive Health Project, a needle exchange center located in Midtown Manhattan. Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, author of "Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam" said, “To witness the poetry of Jon Sands is to come face-to-face with a force of nature. He is a baby-faced cyclone, a wild twister of poet who isn't afraid to use everything he's got to move an audience, to absolutely blow them away.†Author of three chapbooks with JKpublishing, Jon is perpetually attempting to discover what makes the sloppy muscle inside our ribs tick into such a beautiful mess.
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When other people speak of me well, it sounds like this:
“With wit, truth, surprise, and always a lot of heart, tearing from his throat like a swollen freight train, Jon Sands sneaks up on you when you least expect it…challenges the dusty cynic under your ribcage and dares you to believe.â€
-- Carlos Andrés Gómez
"Jon Sands does for poetry what Robert Johnson does for the blues: the man’s got more soul than a sock with a hole. Sands’ beautiful verse pairs itself lovingly beside a delivery that never fails in picking an audience apart, heartstring by heartstring. Finding a more engaging performer – or a nicer guy, for that matter - is nothing but a fool's errand."
-- Fairleigh Dickinson University
"If you’ve been praying for a poet who can combine the lightning strokes of page poetry with all the panache of the kind of performance that takes absolute possession of a room, your long wait is over: Jon Sands is the answer to your prayers!"
-- Jack McCarthy
"The New York City Poetry Slam didn't know what to make of Jon Sands when he first exploded onto our scene -- I mean, how does a kid from suburban Ohio get away with having so much soul? -- But we soon learned not to question our luck. Instead, we have let ourselves be charmed by Sands' lean, taunt verse, seduced by his fresh, uninhibited performances and awed by his unstoppable and undeniable passion for life. To witness the poetry of Jon Sands is to come face-to-face with a force of nature. He is a baby-faced cyclone, a wild twister of poet who isn't afraid to use everything he's got to move an audience, to absolutely blow them away."
-- Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, author of "Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam"