I
Love Sonia Sanchez
Ghelawdewos
Araia, PhD
November
4, 2011
Sonia
Sanchez came to Lehman College of the City
University of New York on November 3, 2011 and in
her honor I took my African Civilization class
with me to the Lovinger Theater where she read her
poem.
I
had the honor to meet this wonderful woman of
great stature in the world of poetry and
literature. Once she began reading her poems,
instantaneously I felt as if the Harlem
Renaissance was reenacted with new dimensions and
vistas. There
is no doubt that Sonia Sanchez is the direct
descendant of the Harlem literary giants. The more
she read, the more I felt as if a vibrant literary
renaissance and cultural regeneration was taking
place.
Before
she began reading, however, she connected the
Lehman audience in the Bronx with the downtown
Manhattan ‘Occupy Wall Street’ militants by
saying, “lets give a hand to the people in Wall
Street.” After all, Sonia, like most poets,
captures the reality on the ground, and as
Benjamin Brawley aptly stated in his book ‘The
Negro in Literature and Art in the United
States,’ “literature is supposed to be a
reflection of national life.” In point of fact,
Sonia Sanchez, in no uncertain terms, addressed
the audience by saying, “bring back the money
from Iraq and Afghanistan so that we can have jobs
here at home.”
Quoting
DuBois, Sonia said, “The preparation for war is
war,” “and I say, the preparation for peace is
peace.” She further reinforced her message of
peace by quoting Gandhi, “there is no way for
peace; peace is the way,” and she galvanized the
peace mission by a simple and yet profound phrase.
“Writers are for peace,” she uttered in a
mellow but penetrating tone. I love this woman
dearly! She is a holy woman and a peacemaker!
Sonia
Sanchez entertained the audience by her wit and
sense of humor and the many genre of poetry that
she read. She read poems that she wrote for Bill
Cosby, Martin Luther King, and Toupak etc. She
read love poems and captivated the audience.
Students
of literature in the audience could have been more
into detecting the rhythmic patterns (especially
when her reading was intermittently accompanied by
a click language and nonverbal communication of
her index finger) tone, irony, paradox, and
narrative techniques of her poems. But, the
majority in the audience, I gather, was impressed
by her down to earth personality and her
absolutely sincere concern for the young
generation. She told them in plain English,
“This is your earth, this is your world,” and
she empowered the young men and women in the
audience by figuratively furnishing a message:
‘If you act properly, you can control your
destiny and perform miracles’ (my own
interpretation) and she even said, “you [ought]
to be healing your body, your mind, and your
neighborhood.”
As
soon as the poem reading was over, I had to rush to
my class but on my way to my office I thought of
writing a brief poem for Sonia Sanchez, and here
it is:
I love Sonia Sanchez
A poet, a woman, a feminist
But above all a global humanist
Every person to her
Irrespective of color and creed
Is a brother or a sister
I love Sonia Sanchez
She is love herself
Found everywhere in the universe
Everywhere from the ghetto to the bookshelf
What a woman she is Sonia
The godmother of young poets
From America to Azania
From Philadelphia to Ethiopia
Sonia is a global humanist
A spokesperson for the planet
An advocate of cooperation and spirituality
She is a woman who forced me to love her
dearly.
Sonia
Sanchez was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1934
and moved to Harlem, New York in the 1940s and the
following brief bio from her official website
suffice to know this brilliant poet: Sonia Sanchez
– poet, activist, scholar – was the Laura
Cornell professor of English and Women’s studies
at Temple University. She is the recipient of both
the Robert Frost Medal of distinguished lifetime
service to American poetry and the Langston Hughes
Poetry Award. One of the important writers of the
Black Arts Movement, Sanchez is the author of
sixteen books.
Some
praise for Sonia Sanchez:
“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.”
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.”
Chinua Achebe
“Sanchez’s
powers of empathy shine with rare luminosity.”
Paula Friedman, The Philadelphia Inquirer
“At
77, Sonia Sanchez represents the double completion
in Kemetic wisdom.”
Ghelawdewos
Araia, Institute of Development and Education for
Africa (IDEA)
All
Rights Reserved. Copyright © IDEA, Inc. 2011. Dr.
Ghelawdewos Araia is professor of African Studies
at Lehman College (CUNY) and professor of
International Studies at Central Connecticut State
University (CCSU). He can be contacted for
educational and constructive feedback via dr.garaia@africanidea.org
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