Published Work and Readings - Sarah T The Artist

I got to know Sarah… through her public readings, which were unlike anything I’d ever heard, and I quickly realized that her researched, detailed writing would change how I viewed history, feminism, and even personal relationships.

– From interview in Empty Mirror, by Hannah Greico, author of First Kicking, and Then Not

Books

This Past Was Waiting for Me: A Chronicle at Quarter Century (rev 2nd ed.) Essays, images, and poems (New York: Lazuli Literary Group, 2025).

It Was the Scarlet That Did It chapbook of poems (Philadelphia: Moonstone Arts Press, 2019).

Short Works

“Swaying with Wicked Grace” in From the Attic anthology [best of the Grace in Gravity series], (Washington, DC: American University Press, 2023).

“Found Poem,” in 25th Anniversary Poetry Ink Anthology (Philadelphia: Moonstone Arts Press, 2021).

“Apostasy” poem in 2019 Featured Poets Anthology (Philadelphia: Moonstone Arts Press, 2020).

“Haiti, Crossing Borders of the Mind.” The Rumpus, “Torch” series, June 5, 2018, therumpus.net.

“Swaying with Wicked Grace,” in Grace in Darkness: Volume VIII, Grace in Gravity anthology (Washington, DC: American University Press, 2018).

“Jazz Interaction with Symbols” poem, Azure: A Journal of Literary Thought, Vol. 2, Spring/Summer, 2017.

“The Old Man,” chapter from Deep Rooted Cane in Azure: A Journal of Literary Thought, Vol. 1 (Issue 10), Spring/Summer, 2016.“Elegy for Women over the Edge (Middle Passage)” poem, Sally Hemings Dreams, August 7, 2016, sallyhemingsdreams.tumblr.com

A Performance Poem

Guest poet: Performed spoken word, “History Repeats Itself Sometimes,” with rock band Thaylobleu, at Lumen8 Anacostia, Ward 8 festival, Washington, DC, June 22, 2013.

“History Repeats itself Sometimes” full text
By Sarah T.
All rights reserved.

The Amistadwasn’t a dinghy.
And Roanoake Island wadn’t no joke.
Did you know?
Crazy Horse paved a brazen way.
Remember those days?
More than a few Zulu and Sioux
Apache and Fon refused to get gone.
They beat colonial powers
And whisper to us at this hour: Organize!
Resist! Picture this…
Dutty Boukmann holds tight in Columbia Heights
And Bolivar stays on the Beltway
Cetashwayo rolls uptown
Manuelito heads back down
Nzingha guards the north gate
Where Tecumseh and Prophet await…
For Ya’Asantewa
Walks Anacostia calling
Singing SEE THEM
See the Pilgrims sail!
See them sail
They seek to settle
See them sail into the city
Dock.
And scoff at us
Mod
Metropolitan
Squantos.
Notice the encroachment These are
New colonial Joes. These are
New Francisco Pizarros
On bikes instead of ships
Toting shih tzus
Instead of horse whips.
Can you see them?
Shnozzes to the sky
They snub Already Inhabitants as they go by
Inclining their minds only slightly above the urge
To enslave urban natives
Or smother whomever they “discover”
With philanthropic love
And understanding
And unabashed
Eventual
Extinction.
Elsewhere inland of the Atlantic
Corporate incarnates of Sir Walter Raleigh
Amerigo Vespucci wannabees (in Gucci)
Speculate
Delaware, Potomac, Chattahoochee Rivers
Quiver
Sit on their asses
Shit on the masses
And play(er) hate on our collective fate
(With slash-marks of chalk on their slate)
They pluck up the unlucky
From in-city what!?-front
As if expelling renters
And reselling to expectant gentry members
Isn’t reminiscent
Of the 40-acres shamockery
Isn’t like
The Ghana/slash/Arada debacle
Isn’t like
The gleaning / slash /
The Reaping / slash /
The razing / slash /
The Raping / slash /
The spree / slash /
The spree being a lasso / slash /
The spree being a bashing / slash /
The spree being wrasslin’ Africans
From the village
To the ships
Via the pits of Elmina Castle …
Remember that hassle?
The ideological and actual offspring
Of John “Massevacuationwaitingtohappen” Cabot
And William “Beforethemassacre” Bradford
Scratch their heads
(and forget)
They cannot quite get it
Those happy and hapless carriers
Of little dogs (called Terriers) with sweaters
Aren’t that much better than the
Way-pavers and slave-getters
/ slash / the “blessed settlers”
/ slash / the Dismemberers
Mainly because they don’t know
Or won’t remember.
They fake being hip
Gather real estate tips
And repeat the transgressions of yore
What a bore
They snore at the smelly aspects of American lore
Like Andrew Jackson hacking off mm to keep track of mm
Like erasing identities of Africans
And scratching interactions with Africans
Off of classroom blackboards
These new Cristoforo’s adore
Conquistadores and “explorers”
And rowing their Golden Oars
To “slaveholders’-birthday-sale” stores
To furnish condos that used to be yours
The home that used to be yours
In Khaki pants and Mississippi cotton spun socks
They’re off to said shoppes (past Mom-n-Pops’)
They (gleefully) weee! into
Jeep “Cherokees”
With pockets of twenties
To manifest posh destinies
Gee.
Can you see?
It reminds me of something else
Fishy and stinkin’ in American history
This likeness reminds me
That the less-money-makin’
Of all generations
Are often forsaken
Like Geronimo’s bones
Like our heroes’ ghosts
And like boats
Adrift
And afloat in oceans
Of tired, jacked up, embarrassing notions
And will always be
Unless we become conquistadores of Inequity
With our bayonets aimed straight /
At Usurping
Forgettin’
And Fakin’.
It inspires me to flip the script
On the usual muting of Fairness and Truth
And declare:
We refuse to repeat what went down back there
We will keep our toeholds in homes.
We can handle the manacles clapped on History’s wrists
We know we that have the keys
To manifest NEW destinies
And we understand quite clearly
That this excavation of Honesty
Is not a job for Mnemosyne (Goddess of memory / Mother of Muses)
This is a call to remember:
History repeats itself sometimes.

Public Readings

Featured Speaker: “’Still Sort of Weeping the Substance’: Sugar Cane and Blood in the Artist’s Imagination,” Lazuli Reading Series, Lazuli Literary Group, Brooklyn, NY, March 2021.

Reader of poetry from It Was the Scarlet that Did It: “Inspiration Information: A #BLM Reading and Discussion,” 1455 Literary Festival, Winchester, VA, July 17, 2020.

Featured reader of excerpts from It Was the Scarlet that Did It: Readings on the Pike, Arlington, VA, November 19, 2019.

Reader of excerpts from This Past Was Waiting for Me (1st ed.): Term Faculty Scholarship Forum, American University, Washington, DC, October 30, 2019.

Featured reader of excerpts from This Past Was Waiting for Me (1st ed.): Readings on the Pike, Arlington, VA, March 18, 2019.

Reader (with Yao Glover and Kenneth Carroll): “Like It Is, I Tell It,” performance and discussion by three descendants of the Black Arts Movement, American Poetry Museum, Washington, DC, February 10, 2019.

Host and reader: Launch party for independent release of This Past Was Waiting for Me (1st ed.), with Kenneth Carroll, Darrell Perry, Yao Glover, and Hollynd Karapetkova), Busboys and Poets, Takoma Park, MD, January 20, 2019.

Reader: This Past Was Waiting for Me (1st ed.) at the DC area Women Writers of Color event (hosted by Marita Golden), Mitchellville, MD, January 5, 2019.

Reader: Performed selection of This Past Was Waiting for Me (1st ed.) at the DC area Women Writers of Color event (hosted by Marita Golden), Burtonsville, MD, September 8, 2018.

Reader: Read at launch party for Grace in Darkness anthology, Washington, DC, May 7, 2018.

Faculty reader: Performed selections from This Past Was Waiting for Me at Shades of Blue: Marymount University Anniversary Reading, Arlington, Virginia, February 17, 2016.

Poet: Performed selection from This Past Was Waiting for Me and selection from Sonia Sanchez’s Under a Soprano Sky in honor of the work of Sonia Sanchez at Moonstone Poetry at Philly CAM, Who Do You Love? Philadelphia, PA, September 1, 2015.

Featured artist: Performed poetry from This Past Was Waiting for Me, DiverseCity Fund Awards Banquet, Washington, DC, December 4, 2013.

Poet: Performed poetry from This Past Was Waiting for Me, Lesole’s Dance Project’s A Night of Expression: II, Ubuntu Studio, Mount Rainier, MD, November 16, 2013.

Poet: Performed poetry from This Past Was Waiting for Me in collaboration with jazz guitarist Taj Johnson, at Blue Lights in the Basement event, Flava, Washington, DC, September 19, 2103.Featured artist: Performed poetry from This Past Was Waiting for Me, DiverseCity Fund Awards Banquet, Washington, DC, June 25, 2013.

Featured artist: Performed poetry from This Past Was Waiting for Me, Lesole’s Dance Project’s A Night of Expression: I, Ubuntu Studio, Mount Rainier, MD, March 13, 2013.

Creative-Writer Panels and Other Presentations

Moderator for launch of Marita Golden’s A Woman’s Place, Jan 22, 2023.

Toni Morrison Tribute, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC, February 15, 2020.

Panelist: “Writing through Trauma,” 1455 Summer Literary Festival, Winchester, VA, July 19, 2020.

Panelist: “Writing a Better Future: The Sociopolitical Power of Storytelling,” 1455 Literary Festival, Winchester, VA, July 17, 2020.

Presenter: “From the Gap Between Mask and Skin: #Dontmutedc as Radical Black Resistance to Epicolonial Audacity” on “Sorry Not Sorry: Historical Refusal and Black Art” panel, Build as We Fight, Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association, Honolulu, HI, November 8, 2019.

Featured speaker: “Protest Poetry and the Legacy of Ntozake Shange,” A Continuing Talk about Race series, 14th Street Busboys and Poets, Washington, DC, December 2, 2018.

Panelist: “Poetry of Engagement: A Panel Discussion.” Barrelhouse Conversations and Connections Conference, George Mason University, Arlington, VA, May 12, 2018.

Presenter: “’Who Controls the Past, Controls the Future; Who Controls the Present, Controls the Past’ (or What Goldstein’s Book and Winston’s Diary Reveal about the Buried History of British Imperialism).” American University Department of Literature Colloquium on George Orwell’s 1984, American University, Washington, DC, October 18, 2017.

Panelist: WVAU’s student-led panel on Hip Hop and activism: “The Significance of Kendrik Lamar’s ‘Alright,’” American University, Washington, DC, March 22, 2016.

Organizer and facilitator: “’You Must Learn’: The Legacy of Hip Hop Scholarship” talk at Bender Library by Words, Beats, Life executive director, Mazi Mutafa, American University, Washington, DC, March 21, 2016.

Presenter: “Remixing Blues People for the Classroom: Using Baraka’s Book and Digitally Archived Sound to Historically Situate Hip Hop,” Paper presented at Remixing the Art of Social Change teach-in, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC, Nov. 12-14, 2015.