Sonia Sanchez
Sonia writes that even though a poet speaks plainly, “she/he is a manipulator of symbols and language — images which have been planted by experience in the collective subconscious of a people. Through this manipulation, she/he creates new or intensified meaning and experience ... Thus poetry is what I call, ‘subconscious conversation’: it is as much of the work of the those who ‘understand’ it and those who ‘make’ it.” Sonia creates and has these “subconscious conversations” everyday in efforts to teach and help rebuild the world. Her poems speak of issues ranging from peace to domestic violence to 9-11, poems that she hopes hold themselves “like a sliver to the heart of the world,” poems that do “battle for the creation of a human world, that is a world of reciprocal recognition.” Sonia is in the process of writing her memoirs, Morning Haiku, a book that is a testament to her ongoing commitment to struggle. Through this memoir, she wants people to know the “heavy smell of a poet who put her foot on this American spine and bid her country to look up at these gospel hands hanging bamboo poems of life.” She has worked for change for many decades, participating in the Black Arts Movement, the Black Arts Repertoire Theater, and helped to found the first Black studies program in the U.S. Sonia also teaches free courses at places like the Black Family Reunion Center and Graterford Prison. She is currently teaching a class, Poetry as Spiritual Practice at the Provincetown Arts Center. Her work is ongoing, because as she continues to speak for peace and against injustice, the many forms of silencing resistance in this country continue as well.
Awarded Grants
2005
Leeway Transformation Award (LTA)
Related grantees
Overview
Sonia writes that even though a poet speaks plainly, “she/he is a manipulator of symbols and language — images which have been planted by experience in the collective subconscious of a people. Through this manipulation, she/he creates new or intensified meaning and experience ... Thus poetry is what I call, ‘subconscious conversation’: it is as much of the work of the those who ‘understand’ it and those who ‘make’ it.” Sonia creates and has these “subconscious conversations” everyday in efforts to teach and help rebuild the world. Her poems speak of issues ranging from peace to domestic violence to 9-11, poems that she hopes hold themselves “like a sliver to the heart of the world,” poems that do “battle for the creation of a human world, that is a world of reciprocal recognition.” Sonia is in the process of writing her memoirs, Morning Haiku, a book that is a testament to her ongoing commitment to struggle. Through this memoir, she wants people to know the “heavy smell of a poet who put her foot on this American spine and bid her country to look up at these gospel hands hanging bamboo poems of life.” She has worked for change for many decades, participating in the Black Arts Movement, the Black Arts Repertoire Theater, and helped to found the first Black studies program in the U.S. Sonia also teaches free courses at places like the Black Family Reunion Center and Graterford Prison. She is currently teaching a class, Poetry as Spiritual Practice at the Provincetown Arts Center. Her work is ongoing, because as she continues to speak for peace and against injustice, the many forms of silencing resistance in this country continue as well.
