Gathering Sounds

"I gather up each sound you left behind and stretch them on our bed.

each nite I breathe you and become high."  

Sonia Sanchez



Sonia Sanchez

 Renown poet and professor, Sonia Sanchez has been known for her innovative melding of musical formats - like the blues - and traditional poetic formats like haiku and tanka.  Sanchez was the first to create and teach a course based on Black Women and literature in the United States.

Here's Sonia reciting, "Put On the Sleeves of Love" from her upcoming book, Morning Haiku, which will be published January 25, 2011.  Check out her website at http://www.soniasanchez.net/.

I was first introduced to Sonia Sanchez in the movie, love jones when Nina quoted the poem above to when talking to Darius on a date.  Nina's character said that Sanchez's poems made her want to burn her notebook...and I thought, "now I just HAVE to read those poems."

Stay tuned as we highlight black poets monthly.