Recorded April 13, 2021
In conversation with M. Nzadi Keita, Poet-in-Residence, Associate Professor; co-coordinator, African-American/Africana Studies at Ursinus College, and author of Brief Evidence of Heaven: Poems from the life of Anna Murray Douglass
Referred to by Maya Angelou as “a lion in literature’s forest,” living legend Sonia Sanchez is the author of numerous plays, children’s books, a story collection, and nearly 14 collections of poetry, including the American Book Award winner Homegirls and Handgrenades. A luminary of the Black Arts Movement, she served as the Laura Carnell Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Temple University, was named Philadelphia’s very first Poet Laureate in 2012, and has lectured at more than 500 colleges and universities. Her many honors include the Wallace Stevens Award Prize, the Langston Hughes Poetry Award, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cleveland Foundation. Collected Poems represents five decades of Sanchez’s art and devotion to the causes of Black liberation and women’s rights.