The New Clean

Jon Sands has traveled into a ridiculous world, where nothing is too hilarious to not be honest, and nothing is too honest to not get you pregnant. Best of all, he's packed us in his suitcase. He represents an ever-changing population of those raised elsewhere who find themselves beckoned by the history, mystique, and magic-makers of New York City. These poems inhabit their own contradictions, and exquisitely navigate the many complicated sides of what it means to be alive.

Jon Sands won the 2018 National Poetry Series, selected for his second book, It's Not Magic (Beacon Press, 2019). He is the Emotional Historians workshop facilitator, a series of generative writing workshops that you can learn more about on Instagram at @iAmJonSands. His work has been featured in the New York Times and anthologized in The Best American Poetry. He teaches at Brooklyn College, Urban Word NYC, and for over a decade has facilitated a weekly writing workshop for adults at Baily House, an HIV/AIDS service center in East Harlem. He tours extensively as a poet but lives in Brooklyn.