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Sonia Sanchez Stati Uniti inglese

Sonia Sanchez è nata a Birmingham, Alabama, nel 1934. Poetessa, drammaturga, insegnante e attivista per i diritti civili, è una delle voci più forti e appassionate della letteratura afroamericana contemporanea.
Quando aveva solo un anno di età sua madre morì e lei fu mandata a vivere con la nonna paterna. Nel 1943 si è trasferita ad Harlem per vivere con il padre, la sorella e la matrigna, che era la terza moglie del padre. Nel 1955 ha ottenuto la laurea in scienze politiche all’Hunter College, dove aveva seguito anche alcuni corsi di scrittura creativa. In seguito, ha completato il percorso post-laurea alla New York University, dove aveva studiato poesia con Louise Bogan. Nel 1972 è entrata a far parte della Nation of Islam, ma l'ha lasciata dopo tre anni, nel 1975, in quanto la sua visione dei diritti delle donne era in contrasto con quelli dell’organizzazione. Sanchez ha sposato il poeta Etheridge Knight, ma i due hanno poi divorziato. Ha tre figli e tre nipoti.
Ha pubblicato tredici volumi di poesia i più recenti tra i quali sono: "Shake loose my skin: New and selected poems" (1999); "Like the singing coming off the drums: Love poems" (1998); "Does your house have lions?" (1995), "Wounded in the house of a friend" (1995) e "Under a soprano sky"(1987). Ha abbondantemente scritto per il teatro. Tra le pièces più recenti citiamo "Black cats back and uneasy landings" (1995), "I’m black when I’m singing, I’m blue when I ain’t" (1982), "Malcom man / Don’t live here no mo’" (1979). La poesia di Sonia Sanchez ha caratteristiche molto eterogenee. È scritta in una grande varietà di stili e toni. Sanchez crede che la poesia debba affrancarsi dai modelli bianchi e per questo usa spesso il gergo del ghetto, i ritmi della musica nera e la musicalità tipica della parlata degli afroamericani. Utilizza speso le forme dell’haiku, del tanka e del sonku, forme stilistiche orientali, adottate spesso dai poeti rivoluzionari neri.
Maya Angelou, un’altra grande poetessa afroamericana, così riassume la sua opera: “Sonia Sanchez è come un leone nella foresta della letteratura. Quando scrive, ruggisce, e quando dorme le altre creature camminano imbronciate”.
Sanchez ha ottenuto alcuni tra i più ambiti riconoscimenti, tra cui il Lucretia Mott Award, l’Outstanding Arts Award e il Peace and Freedom Award conferitole dalla Lega Internazionale Donne per la pace e per la Libertà (WILPF) e un Pew Fellowship per le Arti. Ha tenuto lezioni e letture pubbliche in più di cinquecento università e scuole negli Stati Uniti e ha viaggiato molto all’estero diffondendo la sua poesia e il suo impegno politico. Sanchez ha insegnato in otto università ed ha tenuto lezioni in oltre 500 campus in tutti gli Stati Uniti, tra cui la Howard University. Ha inoltre sostenuto l’introduzione di un corso di studi sulla comunità e sull'arte nera in California. Ha insegnato dal 1977 presso la Temple University, fino al 1999, anno del suo pensionamento.
Sonia Sanchez è stata la prima a creare e tenere un corso universitario incentrato sulle donne di colore e la loro letteratura negli Stati Uniti. È stata la prima a ricoprire la carica di Presidential Fellow alla Temple University, dove ha iniziato a lavorare nel 1977. Ha mantenuto tale carica fino al 1999, quando si è ritirata. Ha tenuto letture pubbliche delle sue poesie in Africa, Cina, Australia, Europa, Nicaragua, Canada, a Cuba e nei Caraibi. È anche apparsa nello show di Bill Cosby mandato in onda dalla CBS negli anni novanta.
L’autrice fa anche parte di Plowshares, della Brandywine Peace Community e di MADRE. Supporta inoltre MOMS in Alabama e il National Black United Front. Era membro del CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), dove ha incontrato Malcolm X. Ha scritto molti testi teatrali e libri che trattano la vita e le lotte dell’America Nera, ha anche pubblicato due antologie di letteratura nera We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans e 360° of Blackness Coming at You.
È conosciuta inoltre per la sua innovativa fusione di generi musicali, come il blues, con le forme poetiche tradizionali quali gli haiku e i tanka.Tende poi a usare uno spelling sbagliato per raggiungere meglio il punto di ciò che intende esprimere.
Vive a Philadelphia.

Ha partecipato con Casa della poesia nel 2005 a "Il cammino delle comete" (Pistoia) e nello stesso anno ad "Altre Americhe" (Salerno).

Poetry

* Homecoming, Broadside Press, 1969
* We a Baddddd People (1970), Broadside Press, 1973
* Love Poems, Third Press, 1973
* A Blues Book for a Blue Black Magic Woman, Broadside Press, 1974
* Autumn Blues
* Continuous Fire: A Collection of Poetry
* Shake Down Memory: A Collection of Political Essays and Speeches
* It's a New Day: Poems for Young Brothas and Sistuhs (1971)
* Homegirls and Handgrenades(1985) (reprint White Pine Press, 2007, ISBN 9781893996809)
* Under a Soprano Sky, Africa World Press, 1987, ISBN 9780865430525
* I've Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems, Third World Press, 1985, ISBN 9780883781128
* Wounded in the House of a Friend, Beacon Press, 1995, ISBN 9780807068267
* Does Your House have Lions, Beacon Press, 1997, ISBN 9780807068304
* Like the Singing Coming Off of Drums, Beacon Press, 1998
* Shake Loose My Skin. Beacon Press. 2000. ISBN 9780807068533.
* Ash(2001)
* Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (2001)
* Morning Haiku. Beacon Press. 2010. ISBN 9780807069103.

Plays

* Black Cats and Uneasy Landings
* I'm Black When I'm Singing, I'm Blue When I Ain't (1982)
* The Bronx is Next (1970)
* Sista Son/Ji (1972)
* Uh Huh, But How Do It Free Us? (1975)
* Malcolm Man/Don't Live Here No More (1979)
* I'm Black When I'm Singing, I'm Blue When I Ain't and Other Plays (Duke University Press, 2010)

Children's Books

* It's a New Day
* A Sound Investment
* The Adventures of Fat Head, Small Head, and Square Head, The Third Press, 1973, ISBN 9780893880941

Anthologies

* We Be Word Sorcerers
* 360 Degrees of Blackness Coming at Ya!
* Robert Bly, David Lehman, ed (1999). The Best American poetry, 1999. Scribner. ISBN 9780684842806.
* Junot Díaz, ed (2001). "A Poem for My Father". The Beacon Best of 2001: great writing by women and men of all colors and cultures. Beacon Press. ISBN 9780807062395.
* Arnold Rampersad, Hilary Herbold, ed (2006). "answer to yo / question of am i not yo / woman even if you went on shit again". The Oxford anthology of African-American poetry. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195125634.

Interviews

* Joyce Ann Joyce, ed (2007). Conversations with Sonia Sanchez. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781578069521.

Discography

* A Sun Lady for All Seasons Reads Her Poetry (Folkways Records, 1971)
* Every Tone a Testimony (Smithsonian Folkways, 2001)

References

1. Rodriguez, Raquel (2006). "Sanchez, Sonia (1934-)". In Elizabeth Ann Beaulieu. Writing African American Women: An Encyclopedia of Literature by and about Women of Color. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 764–8. ISBN 0-313-33197-9.
2. Emmanuel Sampath Nelson, ed (2004). African American dramatists: an A-to-Z guide. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313322334.
3. Avital H. Bloch, Lauri Umansky, ed (2005). Impossible to hold: women and culture in the 1960's. NYU Press. ISBN 9780814799109.
4. TV Guide

External links

* Official Website
* Academy of American Poets
* Works by or about Sonia Sanchez in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
* Sonia Sanchez Biography at Voices from the Gap
* Approaches to Teaching Sonia Sanchez's Poetry
* An Evening with Sonia Sanchez
* Painted Voices: Sonia Sanchez Biography
* Women of Color Women of Word
* Sonia Sanchez Biography at Speak Out
* Sonia Sanchez Article at the Heath Anthology of American Literature
* Sanchez Discography at Smithsonian Folkways
* Sonia Sanchez's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project

Premi

Nel 1969 ha vinto il P.E.N. Writing Award. Ha ottenuto poi il National Education Association Award 1977-1988 e il National Academy and Arts Award e il National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Award nel 1978-1979. Nel 1985 ha ottenuto l'American Book Award per Homegirls and Handgrenades. Gli sono stati conferiti anche il Community Service Award dal National Black Caucus of State Legislators, il Lucretia Mott Award, il Governor's Award for Excellence in the Humanities e il Peace and Freedom Award dalla Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
Sonia Sanchez on the State of Black Books
The Root talked to the acclaimed poet during the Harlem Book Fair about the future of African-American literature, what she's reading now and more.

by: Nicole Moore

July 27, 2010

Sonia Sanchez is a poet of the highest order. She is consistent in her nonconformist call to arms and to love. The author of more than 14 books -- including Wounded in the House of a Friend, Homegirls and Handgrenades, Shake Loose My Skin and the newly released collection of poetry Morning Haiku, her first in more than a decade -- drenches her words in honey goodness so they sound like the sweetest thang you've ever heard:

"This is not a small voice you hear / this is a large voice coming out of the cities / This is a love colored with iron and lace / This is a love initialed Black Genius / This is not a small voice you hear." ("This Is Not a Small Voice," 1995)

But as sweet as her words sound, they still have the ability to cut deep. The award-winning poet, activist and scholar infuses her writing with the type of historical and cultural significance and power that makes each word sharp as a razor blade and as hard as any Tupac lyric.

It's no wonder that the producers of this year's Harlem Book Fair, which took place July 17, decided to honor Sanchez. "Women in Word and Power" was this year's theme, and appropriately, the fair featured a number of dynamic female authors, including Terry McMillan, Bernice McFadden and Gloria Browne-Marshall, but it seemed as if everyone was there to see the woman whom Maya Angelou has described as "a lion in literature's forest."

I had the opportunity to spend some time with Sanchez on that hazy, hot Saturday afternoon on 135th Street, and she shared her thoughts on the future of black books and street lit and also talked about which books she's reading now.

Nicole Moore: Are you more excited or saddened by the future prospects of black literature?

Sonia Sanchez: Well, my dear sister, because there is something called black literature, I am always excited about it. It just means that people are still writing, that they're still pushing the idea of black literature. In America, they still don't believe black literature exists. We've had to push the idea of black literature, of Latino and Asian literature, of lesbian and gay literature. It all exists right here. There is a different kind of literature other than white literature that continues to permeate everything.

NM: How do you feel about the proliferation of "street lit"?

SS: I'm delighted that young people are writing. I'm delighted even about street literature. I believe we should write everything. Everybody else writes everything; why shouldn't we? When I was growing up, I used to read what we called racy literature. I was at the library every bloody day, and racy literature kept me reading, and then one day I finally got to Pushkin. I think reading is better than watching the "idiot box" because what it says is that the spirit of fire and the spirit of words resides in all of us, and we are going to express it in many ways.

NM: What books are you reading now?

SS: I'm usually reading five or six different books at a time. I'm reading Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. I remember when Ngugi was writing this book because I was writing the first part of my memoir at the same time. The joy of this memoir is simply that he talks about his views as a boy during World War II. So we get a wonderful sense of who he is as a young man.

I'm reading the biography -- the only biography -- of John Oliver Killens [John Oliver Killens: A Life of Black Literary Activism by Keith Gilyard], a great novelist who died too early, too young. I make sure all of my students read him.

I'm also reading Isabel Allende's new book, The Island Beneath the Sea (La isla bajo el mar). I just love Isabel and what she writes and the musicality of her work.

I just got in the mail yesterday Nairobi Heat, a detective novel by Mukoma wa Ngugi, Ngugi's son, that I can't wait to start reading.

And I'm reading the manuscript for this new anthology on rap, so I'm immersing myself in Chuck D, Rakim and Talib Kweli. I'm so happy this book is happening and that they asked me to write a blurb for it because they said I was one of the older people who support young rappers. And I do. I get up in the morning now and I play Rakim's "Casualties of War" to remind myself about the dead bodies that come home every day because of the two wars we are involved in.

Nicole Moore is founder and editor of theHotness.com and can be found on Twitter @thehotnessgrrrl.