Sanchez, Sonia, 1934-

Poet Sonia Sanchez was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 9, 1934. Sanchez's mother died a year later, leaving the young girl to be raised by her paternal grandmother, who unlocked her gift for poetry. At age four, Sanchez learned to read, and by the age of six, she began to write. Unfortunately, soon after, Sanchez's grandmother died and the young girl drifted between relatives and family friends. Sanchez went on to spent three decades in Harlem, where she studied creative writing at Hunter College, graduating in 1955.

Sanchez counted the negritude poets among her artistic influences, but also found inspiration from her work as an activist with CORE in New York. While with CORE, Sanchez came into contact with Malcolm X, whose direct truthfulness moved her to write blunt, passionate, and painfully honest poetry about the African American experience.

In 1976, Sanchez settled in Philadelphia, and the following year became, chairperson of the English Department at Temple University. During the course of her career, Sanchez wrote several books and collections of poetry that captured, often with wrenching emotion, the plight of her community. Sanchez found herself profoundly affected by the 1985 bombing of a house full of black political radicals affiliated with MOVE, and eulogized them inElegy: For Move and Philadelphia. Sanchez's 1984 bookHomegirls and Handgrenades: Poemswon the American Book Award the following year. Some of Sanchez's other noteworthy works include:Under a Soprano Sky(1987);Wounded in the House of a Friend(1997); andShake Loose My Skin(2000).

Sanchez received several awards for her work both as a poet and an activist. Sanchez traveled around the world to read her poetry, and also wrote children's fiction and plays.

American poet and educator Sonia Sanchez was born Wilsonia Benita Driver on September 9, 1934, in Birmingham, Alabama. She married and later divorced Albert Sanchez, whose surname she has continued to use.

She earned a B.A. in political science from Hunter College in 1955 and did postgraduate work at New York University, where she studied poetry with Louise Bogan.

Sonia Sanchez began teaching in the San Francisco area in 1965. There she pioneered the development of Black studies courses at what is now San Francisco State University, where she was an instructor from 1968 to 1969. Sanchez has taught at numerous universities and colleges in the United States and lectured throughout the world on such topics as Black culture and literature, women's liberation, as well as peace and racial justice.

She was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University, where she began teaching in 1977. By her retirement in 1999 she held Temple University's Laura Carnell Chair in English.

In addition to more than a dozen books of poetry, Sanchez has published numerous plays and children's book. Some of her collections of poetry are Does your house have lions? (1995), which was nominated for both the NAACP Image and National Book Critics Circle Award; Homegirls & Handgrenades (1984), which won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; I've Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems (1978); We A BaddDDD People (1970); and Homecoming (1969).

Sonia Sanchez's contributions to poetry, civil rights and issues of justice have been honored with numerous awards, including the Lucretia Mott Award in 1984, the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Excellence in the Humanities for 1988, the Peace and Freedom Award from Women International League for Peace and Freedom in 1989, a Langston Hughes Poetry Award in 1999, the Poetry Society of America's 2001 Robert Frost Medalist, and in 2009 the Robert Creeley Award.

"Sonia Sanchez." Poetry.org from the Academy of American Poets. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/276 (accessed November 2011) Sonia Sanchez official website. http://soniasanchez.net/bio/ (accessed November 2011)