Sonia Sanchez has published many poems and essays in multiple different magazines and newspapers. She has written many books of poetry. She has also written children’s books, short stories, plays, and essays. Many of her writings focus on black movement in America, including segregation and Jim Crow.
Sanchez was born in 1934 in Birmingham, Alabama. Her mother died when she was young, so she lived with different relatives for a few years. Eventually she ended up with her father and stepmother in New York. She had lived with her grandmother for a while, before she came to live with her father, and when her grandmother died, she felt that loss greatly. She started stuttering and that made her retreat inside herself. Because of that, and usually hanging out alone, she started to read a lot. This sparked her interest in language, which would eventually become her career. In college, she really thrived in school and gained her own writing voice and style. Her stutter eventually went away. She is famous for her ability to use her voice and it’s different dynamics to really convey her messages and give life to her poetry.
In her poems, Sanchez uses the words of language as much as the sounds. One of her most famous styles is the way she incorporates music with poetry. She combines both the blues and haiku into a very original poem. The way she reads her poems has gained her much popularity in the poetry world.
She has won multiple words over the years. The most notable award that she received was the Robert Frost Medal in 2001 for her poetry. Other, but not all, awards she has received are the National Endowment for the Arts in 1978, P.E.N. Writing Award in 1969, American Book Award in 1985, and the National Education Association Award in 1977. Her poems are really known for the way that they blend music and language together, and for the themes of her works.
