homegirls & handgrenades: Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez is one of the most deeply moving and committed poets to emerge from the Black Arts Movement in the late sixties and seventies. A poet, activist, playwright, editor and teacher, Sanchez has significantly influenced American literature and culture by the urgency of her sustained and powerful voice.

From 1969 to the present, she has authored twelve books of poems including Homecoming (1969), We a BadddDDD People (1970), A Blues Book for Blue Black Magical Women (1974), homegirls & handgrenades (1984), and Under a Soprano Sky (1987), Wounded in the House of a Friend (1995), Does Your House Have Lions? (1998), and Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums: Love Poems (1998).

A recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Award, 1985 American Book Award for homegirls & handgrenades, the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Humanities for 1988, and the Peace and Freedom Award from the Women International League for Peace and Freedom for 1989, she also received the Pew Fellowship in the Arts for her outstanding literary achievement. Sanchez has lectured at over 500 universities and colleges in the United States and has traveled extensively, reading her poetry in Africa, China, Europe, Canada, and the Caribbean.

She currently holds the Laura Carnell Chair in English at Temple University.

Over 2,000 people gathered at Riverside Church in New York on Friday for the funeral of the legendary drummer, educator and activist Max Roach, who died on August 16 at the age of 83. He was credited with helping to revolutionize the sound of modern jazz and for playing a prominent role in the struggle for black liberation at home and in Africa. The poem in this video is by poet Sonia Sanchez who spoke at the funeral.