Sonia Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez is one of the most influential poets and activists of the Black Arts Movement, a beloved literary icon, and a powerful voice for social justice whose work has shaped American poetry and civil rights discourse for over five decades. Her poetry, plays, and essays have explored race, gender, and the human condition with extraordinary emotional power and formal innovation.

A Towering Figure in American Poetry

Sanchez is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, including Homegirls and Handgrenades, which won the American Book Award, and Shake Loose My Skin. She was a key figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, alongside contemporaries like Amiri Baraka and Nikki Giovanni. She was one of the first to create and teach Black Studies courses in American universities, pioneering the field at San Francisco State University. She held the Laura Carnell Chair in English at Temple University for many years.

Poetry as a Force for Justice and Change

Sanchez has received some of the highest honors in American literature, including the Robert Frost Medal, the Langston Hughes Poetry Award, and designation as a UNESCO World Poet. She was named Philadelphia’s first Poet Laureate. Her keynotes draw on her extraordinary literary career to deliver passionate presentations on social justice, the power of poetry as resistance, Black cultural expression, the role of art in social change, and using creative voice to fight for justice and human dignity.

Coming of Age in the 1960s

An Evening with Sonia Sanchez

From the Black Arts to Hip-Hop

A Black Woman Speaks

The 21st Century for People of Color

Pushups for Peace