A Tribute to Sonia Sanchez

By Steve Halpern

This past Sunday I attended an inspiring event that was a tribute as well as a Birthday celebration of Sonia Sanchez. Sonia Sanchez is a wonderful poet who has given a voice to people from around the world, who have been marginalized by those who have power. She is also a retired tenured professor from Temple University. The event was held in the African-American Museum in Philadelphia.

I needed to work that day and didn’t get a chance to see the entire program. While my work can be tiring, and at times frustrating, attending this tribute—celebration, was like taking breadth of fresh air.

Included in this program were presentations by about thirty people who in one way or another have been influenced by the life of Sonia Sanchez. I happened to be one of the presenters and I shared my poem, Don’t Sit Down. Many of these poems are included in the book, A Tribute to Sonia Sanchez.

Ishmael Reed gave his tribute to Sonia Sanchez on the back over of this book:

“Sonia is much more than a poet.

She is a medium

Through her we see our ancestors,

Tubman, Truth, Wells, Brooks, Walker.

Through her, we know that they are still alive.”

One poet gave a nice description of a part of who Sonia Sanchez is. This woman was a teacher who asked her class to write a poem. The students found this assignment to be challenging.

So, one student went home and asked her parents about poetry. The student returned to class and gave her teacher a copy of Sonia Sanchez’ poem, Homegirls and Handgrenades. This poem apparently transformed the way the teacher viewed this assignment.

I came to the meeting during the time when Sonia was being interviewed. This was a long interview, but every minute of it kept my interest. I’ll just relate two of Sanchez’ stories.

Early in Sonia’s career, agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation came to her home. Sonia was a teacher and couldn’t understand what these agents wanted with her—a law-abiding citizen.

Then, the agent read a list of names that included Paul Robeson, Marcus Garvey, and W.E.B. Du Bois. The agent accused Sonia of teaching the ideas of these leaders to her students. Being a teacher Sonia didn’t initially understand what the problem was. The agent informed her that she wasn’t supposed to teach students about these leaders because he considered them to be communists.

At this point, Sonia talked about a dog she owned at the time. She said that while she fed and walked the dog, she never had an attachment to it. However, while she was being grilled by the F.B.I., the dog attacked the agents. Sonia then pulled the dog off the agents and had the dog sit. She then pet the dog for the first time. A new relationship of mutual appreciation was established between Sonia and her dog.              

Being an expert in the English language, Sonia has an incisive understanding of the meaning behind the words people use. She talked about how she doesn’t like to use profanity. But when she talked about the people who are running this country she said “It’s a Motha F—a.”

To be honest, I haven’t been a student of Sonia Sanchez’ poetry. I’ve seen her give her unique contribution to political events I’ve attended. Now, I plan to read her work with a new and inspired interest.

You might ask: If I have written so many poems, why haven’t I already read Sonia Sanchez, as well as many other outstanding poets? In order to answer this question, I need to give a bit of my background.

I was born and raised in the city of Newark, New Jersey. I lived in the Weequahic section on the south-side. This is the same neighborhood where Philip Roth grew up and wrote about in several of his books. Roth and I are both Jewish. Philip Roth grew up at a time when the city was predominantly Jewish. I lived there during the transition from Jewish to African-American. Amiri Baraka became the most well known poet in the city.

1967 was my first year in high school. This was the year Newark erupted in a rebellion against police repression. The government responded by invading the city with the national guard and murdered about 21 people. There was a considerable amount of destruction in the city because of the rebellion and ensuing repression. Unlike other cities that had rebellions at that time, the people who had power in New Jersey chose not to rebuild the many destroyed storefronts.

I attended Arts High that was located in close proximity to the downtown Newark area, as well as the former housing projects of the city. I took the bus to school every day where, for four years I viewed the burned out rubble from those buildings that had been destroyed in 1967. Because I was young, I thought this was normal.

These were the years when there was a massive movement against the war in Vietnam. While the U.S. armed forces carried out a massive bombing campaign against Vietnam, this same military destroyed large sections of Newark, New Jersey.

There are moments when people like me realize that the government, or the political economic system is hostile to the interests of working people. My moment was in going to a broken down school in Newark, and then seeing the country-club like schools that were a mere half hour away. Understanding this huge disparity is what made me think that there is something profoundly wrong with the political economic system in this country.

So, I became a communist and worked with various causes to defend the interests of working people in the world. Then, in 1992 my life took a turn and I began to write. First, I became a columnist for the Student Vanguard that is the student newspaper at Community College in Philadelphia. This experience caused me to see that for better or worse, I have a somewhat unique voice.

Then, one of my teachers in school gave us an assignment to write poems. I never thought about doing this before, but now I have an entire book of unpublished poems. I’ve also written a novel and currently contribute to my blog.

You might ask: Why am I giving all this information in my blog of a tribute to Sonia Sanchez?

In my opinion, one of the themes of this tribute was in an idea expressed by the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara when he said: “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking in this quality.”

Listening to the many tributes for Sonia Sanchez the word “love” is the one that resounded. This was found in Sonia’s poetry as well as in the way she communicates with people.

My poetry is about people, events, words, and ideas. In my poems I have attempted to cut through the day-to-day hypocrisy we see in what the media calls the “news.” However, thinking about my poetry, I feel that I could do a much better job in expressing the emotion of love. Perhaps in the words of Che, I’ve been reluctant to take, “the risk of seeming ridiculous.” If we aren’t willing to take that risk, we might as well give up.             

I learned something else at this meeting. While I’ve written many poems, there are many poems written by others that I clearly don’t understand. This bothered me. Then, I thought about many political meetings that I’ve attended where I didn’t understand everything that was being said.

I consider myself a communist, but have never been able to do a complete reading Karl Marx’s three volumes of Capital. For many years, I didn’t even understand the Communist Manifesto. Then, a few years ago I had gained a bit of knowledge of history and began to grow a real appreciation for the Manifesto.

I remember a meeting when Sonia Sanchez talked about meeting Malcolm X. Sonia, like Ida Wells, is short in height. She wanted to say something to Malcolm when he was in Harlem, but he was surrounded by his security guards. However, Sonia, like Ida Wells has a way of making her presence known. So, when Malcolm saw young Sonia’s persistence, he wanted to hear what she had to say.

In those days Sonia said that she liked much of what Malcolm was saying, but not everything. Malcolm, who was one of the best speakers in the history of this country, answered her with two words. “You will.” I believe that today Sonia would say that she indeed did. 

 My point here is that I shouldn’t put myself down because there are many things I don’t understand. By making a continuing attempt to educate myself, I’m learning more and will understand more.

Two of my favorite poets are Pablo Neruda and Langston Hughes. These are two very different poets. Neruda used words like brush strokes of a painting to portray an image. Hughes wrote in clear and precise messages that were unique. This is an excerpt of Neruda’s poem Great Happiness:

“At the gates of factories and mines I want

my poetry to cling to the earth,

to the air, to the victory of abused mankind.

In the hardness that I built, like a box,

Slowly and with metals. I would like

The youth who opens it, face-to-face, to find life,

And plunging his soul in may he reach the gusts

that spilled my happiness, in the stormy heights.”

And this one by Langston Hughes titled Frosting:

“Freedom

Is just frosting

On someone else’s

Cake—

And so must be

Till we

Learn how to

Bake.”

When I think of the totality of this tribute to Sonia, I think of how she continues to nurture young people and encourages them to use their bottomless creativity. I also think that that she represents an essential ingredient in teaching humanity, in Langston Hughes words, “how to bake.”