About Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez—poet, activist, scholar—was the Laura Carnell Professor of English and Women's Studies at Temple University. She is the recipient of both the Robert Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award. One of the most important writers of the Black Arts Movement, Sanchez is the author of sixteen books.

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Praise

“Only a poet with an innocent heart can exorcise so much pain with so much beauty.”… More -Isabel Allende

“[Sanchez] looks deeply into that most dangerous of places-the heart.”… More -Quarterly Black Review

“Her songs of destruction and loss scrape the heart; her praise songs thunder and revitalize. We need these songs for our journey together into the next century.”… More -Joy Harjo

“Sonia Sanchez is a lion in literature’s forest. When she writes she roars, and when she sleeps other creatures walk gingerly.”… More -Maya Angelou

“In all her words, Sanchez grabs your heart.”… More -Vibe

“Sanchez’s powers of empathy shine with rare luminosity.”… More -Paula Friedman, The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Sonia Sanchez’s poetry is a must for all readers. Period.”… More -Essence

“Sanchez’s haiku is as simple and clear as breathing, but with everything that brings energy and vivacity to being alive.” … More -Rain Taxi Review of Books

“This world is a better place because of Sonia Sanchez: more livable, more laughable, more manageable. I wish millions of people knew that some of the joy in their lives comes from the fact that Sonia Sanchez is writing poetry.”… More -Maya Angelou

“The poetry of Sonia Sanchez is full of power and yet always clean and uncluttered. It makes you wish you had thought those thoughts, felt those emotions and, above all, expressed them so effortlessly and so well.”… More -Chinua Achebe

“With an unblinking and critical poet’s eye, Sonia Sanchez has been setting her readers straight, telling the ‘terrible beauty,’ and reflecting images in ways that simultaneously solicit tears and laughter. For over thirty years this revolutionary poet has been undeterred… More -Juanita Johnson-Bailey, Ms.