Sonia Sanchez

Last updated
Sonia Sanchez
Sonia Sanchez.jpg
Sanchez in 1998
BornWilsonia Benita Driver
(1934-09-09) September 9, 1934 (age 90)
Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.
Occupation
  • Poet
  • educator
  • columnist
  • dramatist
  • essayist
Education Hunter College
New York University
Notable awards Robert Frost Medal (2001)
Wallace Stevens Award (2018)
Spouse Etheridge Knight, div.
Children3

Sonia Sanchez (born Wilsonia Benita Driver; September 9, 1934) [1] is an American poet, writer, and professor. She was a leading figure in the Black Arts Movement and has written over a dozen books of poetry, as well as short stories, critical essays, plays, and children's books. In the 1960s, Sanchez released poems in periodicals targeted towards African-American audiences, and published her debut collection, Homecoming, in 1969. In 1993, she received Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and in 2001 was awarded the Robert Frost Medal for her contributions to the canon of American poetry. [1] She has been influential to other African-American poets, including Krista Franklin. [2] Sanchez is a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective. [3]

Contents

Early life

Sanchez was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 9, 1934, to Wilson L. Driver and Lena Jones Driver. Her mother died when Sanchez was only one year old, so she spent several years being shuttled back and forth among relatives. One of those was her grandmother, who died when Sanchez was six years old. [2] The death of her grandmother proved to be a trying time in her life, and Sanchez developed a stutter, which contributed to her becoming introverted. However, her stutter only caused her to read more and more and pay close attention to language and its sounds. [4] [5]

In 1943, Sanchez moved to Harlem in New York City to live with her father (a school teacher), her sister, and her stepmother, who was her father's third wife. When in Harlem, she learned to manage her stutter and excelled in school, finding her poetic voice, which later emerged during her studies at Hunter College. Sanchez focused on the sound of her poetry, admitting to always reading it aloud, and received praise for her use of the full range of African and African-American vocal resources. She is known for her sonic range and dynamic public readings. She now terms herself an "ordained stutterer". [2] Sanchez earned a BA degree in political science in 1955 from Hunter College.

Sanchez pursued post-graduate studies at New York University (NYU), working closely with Louise Bogan. During her time at NYU, she formed a writers' workshop in Greenwich Village, where the "Broadside Quartet" was born. The "Broadside Quartet" included other prominent Black Arts Movement artists such as Haki Madhubuti, Nikki Giovanni and Etheridge Knight. These young poets were introduced and promoted by Dudley Randall, an established poet and publisher.

Although her first marriage to Albert Sanchez did not last, Sonia Sanchez would retain her professional name. She and Albert had one daughter named Anita. She later married Etheridge Knight, and had twin sons named Morani Neusi and Mungu Neusi, but they divorced after two years. Motherhood heavily influenced the motifs of her poetry in the 1970s, with the bonds between mother and child emerging as a key theme. She also has three grandchildren. [6] [2]

Teaching

Sanchez taught 5th Grade in NYC at the Downtown Community School, until 1967. She has taught as a professor at eight universities and has lectured at more than 500 college campuses across the US, including Howard University. She was also a leader in the effort to establish the discipline of Black Studies at the university level. In 1966, while teaching at San Francisco State University, she introduced Black Studies courses. Sanchez was the first to create and teach a course based on Black Women and literature in the United States and the course she offered on African-American literature is generally considered the first of its kind, as it was taught at a predominantly white university. [7] She viewed the discipline of Black Studies as both a new platform for the study of race and a challenge to the institutional biases of American universities. These efforts are clearly in line with the goals of the Black Arts Movement, and she was a known Black feminist. Sanchez was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University, where she began working in 1977. There, she held the Laura Carnell chair until her retirement in 1999. She is currently a poet-in-residence at Temple University. She has read her poetry in Africa, the Caribbean, China, Australia, Europe, Nicaragua, and Canada.

Activism

Sanchez supported the National Black United Front and was a very influential part of the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Arts Movement. In the early 1960s, Sanchez became a member of CORE (Congress for Racial Equality), where she met Malcolm X. Though she was originally an integrationist in her thinking, after hearing Malcolm X speak Sanchez became more separatist in her thinking and focused more on her black heritage and identity. [8]

In 1972, Sanchez joined the Nation of Islam, during which time she published A Blues Book for Blue Black Magical Women (1974), but she left the organization after three years, in 1975. because their views on women's rights conflicted. She continues to advocate for the rights of oppressed women and minority groups. [7] She wrote many plays and books that had to do with the struggles and lives of Black America. Among her plays are Sister Son/ji, which was first produced Off-Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater in 1972; Uh, Huh: But How Do it Free us?, staged in Chicago at the Northwestern University Theatre in 1975, and Malcolm Man/Don't Live Here No Mo’, first produced in 1979 at the ASCOM Community Center in Philadelphia. [6]

Sanchez has edited two anthologies of Black literature: We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans (1974) and 360° of Blackness Coming at You (1999). She is also committed to a variety of activist causes, including the Brandywine Peace Community, MADRE, and Plowshares.

Black Arts Movement

The aim of the Black Arts Movement was a renewal of black will, insight, energy, and awareness. Sanchez published poetry and essays in numerous periodicals in the 1960s, including The Liberator, Negro Digest , and Black Dialogue. Her writing established her importance as a political thinker to the "black aesthetic" program. [2] Sanchez gained a reputation as an important voice in the Black Arts Movement after publishing the book of poems Homecoming in 1969. This collection and her second in 1970, titled We a BaddDDD People, demonstrated her use of experimental poetic forms to discuss the development of black nationalism and identity. [9]

Style and themes

Sanchez is known for her innovative melding of musical formats—such as the blues—and traditional poetic formats such as haiku and tanka. She also uses spelling to celebrate the unique sound of black English, for which she gives credit to poets such as Langston Hughes and Sterling Brown. [8]

Her first collection of poems, Homecoming (1969), is known for its blues influences in both form and content. The collection describes both the struggle of defining black identity in the United States as well as the many causes for celebration Sanchez sees in black culture. [10] Her second book, We a BaddDDD People (1970), solidifies her contribution to the Black Arts Movement aesthetic by focusing on the everyday lives of black men and women. These poems make use of urban black vernacular, experimental punctuation, spelling, and spacing, and the performative quality of jazz. [10]

Though still emphasizing what she sees as the need for revolutionary cultural change, Sanchez's later works, such as I've Been a Woman (1978), Homegirls and Handgrenades (1985), and Under a Soprano Sky (1987), tend to focus less on separatist themes (like those of Malcolm X), and more on themes of love, community, and empowerment. She continues to explores the haiku, tanka, and sonku forms, as well as blues-influenced rhythms. Later works continue her experiments with forms such as the epic in Does Your House Have Lions? (1997), an emotional account of her brother's deadly struggle with AIDS, [2] and the haiku in Morning Haiku (2010). [9]

In addition to her poetry, Sanchez's contributions to the Black Arts Movement included drama and prose. She began writing plays while in San Francisco in the 1960s. Several of her plays challenge the masculinist spirit of the movement, focusing on strong female protagonists. Sanchez has been recognized as a pioneering champion of black feminism. [2]

Contemporary works

Her more recent contemporary endeavors include a spoken-word interlude on "Hope is an Open Window", a song co-written by Diana Ross from her 1998 album Every Day is a New Day . The song is featured as the sound bed for a tribute video to 9/11 that can be viewed on YouTube. Sanchez is currently among 20 African-American women to be a part of "Freedom's Sisters," a mobile exhibition initiated by the Cincinnati Museum Center and the Smithsonian Institution. [11]

Sanchez became Philadelphia's first Poet Laureate, after being appointed by Mayor Michael Nutter. She served in that position from 2012 to 2014. [12]

In 2013, Sanchez headlined the 17th annual Poetry Ink, at which she read her poem "Under a Soprano Sky". [13]

BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez, a documentary film by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater and Sabrina Schmidt Gordon spotlighting Sanchez's work, career, influence and life story, was released in 2015, [14] [15] when it was shown at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival [16] The film premiered in the UK on June 22, 2016, at Rivington Place, London. [17]

Awards

In 1969, Sanchez was awarded the P.E.N. Writing Award. She was awarded the National Education Association Award 1977–1988. She won the National Academy and Arts Award and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Award in 1978–79. In 1985, she received the American Book Award for Homegirls and Handgrenades. She has also been awarded the Community Service Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, the Lucretia Mott Award, the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Humanities, and the Peace and Freedom Award from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, as well as the 1999 Langston Hughes Poetry Award, the 2001 Robert Frost Medal, the 2004 Harper Lee Award, and the 2006 National Visionary Leadership Award. [11] In 2009, she received the Robert Creeley Award, from the Robert Creeley Foundation. [18]

In 2017, Sanchez was honored at the 16th Annual Dr. Betty Shabazz Awards in a ceremony held on June 29 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Harlem. [19]

In 2018, she won the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets for proven mastery of the art of poetry. [20] [21]

At the 84th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards ceremony on September 26, 2019, Sanchez was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Cleveland Foundation. [22]

In October 2021, Sanchez was awarded the 28th annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize "in recognition of her ongoing achievements in inspiring change through the power of the word." [23]

In 2022, Sanchez was awarded The Edward MacDowell Medal by The MacDowell Colony for outstanding contributions to American culture. [24]

Selected bibliography

Poetry

Plays

Short-story collections

Children's books

Anthologies

Interviews

Discography

See also

Related Research Articles

Judy Grahn is an American poet and author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwendolyn Brooks</span> American writer (1917–2000)

Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen, making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beacon Press</span> American non-profit book publisher

Beacon Press is an American left-wing non-profit book publisher. Founded in 1854 by the American Unitarian Association, it is currently a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association. It is known for publishing authors such as James Baldwin, Mary Oliver, Martin Luther King Jr., and Viktor Frankl, as well as The Pentagon Papers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Black Arts Movement</span> 1960s–1970s art movement

The Black Arts Movement (BAM) was an African-American-led art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, BAM created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride. The movement expanded from the accomplishments of artists of the Harlem Renaissance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dudley Randall</span> American poet (1914– 2000)

Dudley Randall was an African-American poet and poetry publisher from Detroit, Michigan. He founded a pioneering publishing company called Broadside Press in 1965, which published many leading African-American writers, among them Melvin Tolson, Sonia Sanchez, Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, Etheridge Knight, Margaret Walker, and others.

Mari Evans was an African-American poet, writer, and dramatist associated with the Black Arts Movement. Evans received grants and awards including a lifetime achievement award from the Indianapolis Public Library Foundation. Her poetry is known for its lyrical simplicity and the directness of its themes. She also wrote nonfiction and edited Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation, an important and timely critical anthology devoted to the work of 15 writers. Evans died at the age of 97 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Etheridge Knight was an African-American poet who made his name in 1968 with his debut volume, Poems from Prison. The book recalls in verse his eight-year-long sentence after his arrest for robbery in 1960. By the time he left prison, Knight had prepared a second volume featuring his own writings and works of his fellow inmates. This second book, first published in Italy under the title Voce negre dal carcere, appeared in English in 1970 as Black Voices from Prison. These works established Knight as one of the major poets of the Black Arts Movement, which flourished from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. With roots in the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, and the Black Power Movement, Etheridge Knight and other American artists within the movement sought to create politically engaged work that explored the African-American cultural and historical experience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Oliver</span> American poet (1935–2019)

Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. She found inspiration for her work in nature and had a lifelong habit of solitary walks in the wild. Her poetry is characterized by wonderment at the natural environment, vivid imagery, and unadorned language. In 2007, she was declared the best-selling poet in the United States.

Joan Murray is an American poet, writer, playwright and editor. She is best known for her narrative poems, particularly her book-length novel-in-verse, Queen of the Mist; her collection Looking for the Parade which won the National Poetry Series Open Competition, and her New and Selected Poems volume, Swimming for the Ark, which was chosen as the inaugural volume in White Pine Press's Distinguished Poets Series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haki R. Madhubuti</span> American poet (born 1942)

Haki R. Madhubuti is an African-American author, educator, and poet, as well as a publisher and operator of black-themed bookstore. He is particularly recognized in connection with the founding in 1967 of Third World Press, considered the oldest independent black publishing house in the United States.

Naomi Long Madgett was an American poet and publisher. Originally a teacher, she later found fame with her award-winning poems and was also the founder and senior editor of Lotus Press, established in 1972, a publisher of poetry books by black poets. Known as "the godmother of African-American poetry", she was the Detroit poet laureate since 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Gunn Allen</span> American poet

Paula Gunn Allen was an American poet, literary critic, activist, professor, and novelist. Of mixed-race European-American, Arab-American, and Native American descent, she identified with her mother's people, the Laguna Pueblo. Gunn Allen wrote numerous essays, stories and poetry with Native American and feminist themes, and two biographies of Native American women. She edited four collections of Native American traditional stories and contemporary writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikki Giovanni</span> American poet, writer and activist (born 1943)

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she was named as one of Oprah Winfrey's 25 "Living Legends". Giovanni is a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donna Masini</span> American poet

Donna Masini is a poet and novelist who was born in Brooklyn and lives in New York City.

Larissa Szporluk is an American poet and professor. Her most recent book is Embryos & Idiots. Her poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including Daedalus, Faultline, Meridian, American Poetry Review, and Black Warrior Review. Her honors include two The Best American Poetry awards, a Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from Guggenheim, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Ohio Arts Council.

Jena Osman is an American poet and editor, who graduated from Brown University, and the State University of New York at Buffalo, with a Ph.D. She teaches at Temple University.

Sharan Strange is an African-American poet, activist, and professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Danner</span> American poet

Margaret Danner (1915–1984) was an American poet, editor and cultural activist known for her poetic imagery and her celebration of African heritage and cultural forms.

The Furious Flower Poetry Center (FFPC) is the first academic center in the United States devoted to African-American poetry, housed by James Madison University. Dr. Joanne V. Gabbin is the current executive director. English professor Lauren Alleyne serves as an assistant director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sabrina Schmidt Gordon</span> American documentary filmmaker

Sabrina Schmidt Gordon is an American documentary filmmaker. She is known for producing and editing films on cultural and social issues. In 2018, she was invited to become a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

References

  1. 1 2 Lennon, Gary Maniaci, Teodoro (2009), .45, Nordisk Film, OCLC   488332802 {{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gates, Henry Louis, and Valerie Smith (eds), The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. W.W. Norton & Company, 2014 (Third edition).
  3. ↑ "The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective".
  4. ↑ "Sonia Sanchez". Stamma. October 18, 2021. Retrieved August 12, 2023.
  5. ↑ Torres, Alexus (November 17, 2022). "Feminist Theorist Thursdays: Sonia Sanchez". FEM Magazine. UCLA. Retrieved August 12, 2023.
  6. 1 2 "Sonia Sanchez", Writers Directory 2005, Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved August 9, 2019.
  7. 1 2 Irons, Stasia (24 March 2007). "Sanchez, Sonia (1934– )". www.blackpast.org. The Black Past. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  8. 1 2 "Library System – Howard University". www.howard.edu. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  9. 1 2 Ryan-Bryant, Jennifer. "Sonia Sanchez". Oxford Bibliographies. Retrieved November 7, 2016.
  10. 1 2 "We a BaddDDD People". The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature. Oxford Reference.
  11. 1 2 "Praise and Awards". Sonia Sanchez. Retrieved October 23, 2015.
  12. ↑ Jazmyn Burton, "Philadelphia names Sonia Sanchez first poet laureate", Temple News Center, January 28, 2012. Retrieved on November 21, 2014.
  13. ↑ Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman, "Philadelphia's Poetry Ink brings together diverse voices", Philly.com, April 9, 2013.
  14. ↑ "BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez" Archived 2015-08-11 at the Wayback Machine , Attie & Goldwater Productions.
  15. ↑ Italie, Hillel (AP), "Poet-activist Sonia Sanchez subject of new documentary" Archived 2016-08-11 at the Wayback Machine , Yahoo! TV, March 7, 2016.
  16. ↑ Tambay A. Obenson, "Docs on Sonia Sanchez, Senegal's 2011 Presidential Elections, Mavis Staples, Althea Gibson Are Full Frame 2015 Selections", Indywire, March 11, 2015.
  17. ↑ "Black Atlantic Cinema Club — BADDDDD: SONIA SANCHEZ, Autograph ABP, June 2016.
  18. ↑ "Robert Creeley Foundation » Award – Robert Creeley Award". robertcreeleyfoundation.org. Retrieved March 23, 2018.
  19. ↑ Pacino, Lisa, "The 16th Annual Dr. Betty Shabazz Awards Honoring Poet Sonia Sanchez 2017", Under The Duvet Productions.
  20. ↑ "Poet Sonia Sanchez Wins $100,000 Prize". AP. August 28, 2018. Retrieved August 12, 2023.
  21. ↑ "Wallace Stevens Award". poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  22. ↑ "Sonia Sanchez 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award", 84th Annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards.
  23. ↑ Barr, Sarah (October 7, 2021). "Sonia Sanchez Wins the Gish Prize". The New York Times. Retrieved October 7, 2021.
  24. ↑ "Macdowell Medalists" . Retrieved August 22, 2022.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.