Published poet, actress, spoken-word artist, playwright, former "non-artist" English/Philosophy double-major and non-graduate of Bryn Mawr College due to the divorce of her parents during her junior year, and recipient of the Mellon Minority Fellowship. After her parents' divorce, she returned to New York and started attending and performing at poetry events, winning the Nuyorican Poets Cafe's 1997 Grand Slam Championship, being selected for the 1997 National semi-finalist Nuyorican Slam Team. She has worked with Paul Simon, Derek Walcott, and Gil Scott-Heron, among other artists. She is the recipient of the 1998 Van Lier Literary Fellowship from the Bronx Council on the Arts and has also received grants from Poets and Writers/NYFA.

Her one-woman show, Surface Transit was nominated for a Drama Desk award, and won Best One Person Show at the HBO's Aspen Comedy Arts Festival. Her recently written second one-woman show, Women Can't Wait was first performed at the United Nations for the International Conference on Women's Rights, and is on tour in India at the time of this writing. Her words can be found on DJ Vadim's album "USSR: Life From the Other Side," and on the Ninja Tune 10 year anniversary triple-album Xen Cuts among other places.

Probably her single most famous piece, entitled "Your Revolution" caused a tussle between independent non-commercial radio stations and the FCC. The FCC fined Portland, Oregon's KBOO $7000 for playing the song, which it said contained "unmistakable patently offensive sexual references." The song is a feminist rubuttal to the portrayal of women in hip-hop, and the objectification of women (black women, in particular). The song contains no bad words (except for the n-word), and begins "Your revolution will not happen between these thighs."

Sarah Jones was one of the artists responsible for turning me on to hip-hop. Her most easily found poems tend to be about the oppression of women by men, and the oppression of persons of color by white people. Sex (in all senses of the word) and race are the bread and butter of modern American poets, so this is not terribly surprising. Her verses are powerful and uplifting, calling for social change without rousing the rabble.

She lives in Greenwich Village with husband-to-be Steve Coleman.


Despite my best efforts, I was unable to find Sarah Jones' birthdate. If you know it, please /msg me.

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