As soon as Sonia Sanchez, HON ’98, entered the Charles Library Event Space on a Thursday afternoon in late September, the crowd erupted in applause.
The poet and professor emeritus walked over to the podium and read “14 haiku (for Emmett Louis Till)” in her signature cadence.
An activist who played a pivotal role in the Black Arts Movement—including pioneering a Black studies course at San Francisco State—Sanchez encouraged the audience to fight the erasure of various curricula and texts in the education system. “You should think about what’s going on now in schools and do something about it, challenging the idea of what can and cannot be taught,” she said. “You have to say something and organize."
She reflected on the general state of the U.S. and shared sage wisdom such as “reach out to people who also struggle,” “give back,” and “if nothing else don’t gossip about your brothers and sisters.”
In a conversation moderated by Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon—senior associate dean of strategic initiatives and innovation in the Center for the Performing and Cinematic Arts—Sanchez spoke about her upbringing in Birmingham, Alabama, and teaching at various universities including Temple and the University of Pittsburgh.
She was also asked about her writing process. “You can’t write one poem a year and say you’re going to be a great writer,” said Sanchez. “You have to write every day, even if it’s just one or two lines. I have a notebook that’s always next to me, and I can take it out and start writing at will. Sometimes I call someone at 5 a.m. to say I’ve finished something and to hear what I just wrote. My work is out there to read and encourage you to write.”
Sanchez has authored more than 20 books and lectured at more than 500 colleges and universities across the U.S. She became Temple’s first presidential fellow and held the Laura Carnell Chair in English until she retired in 1999. Her accolades include the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Robert Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award, among others. Sanchez was also named Philadelphia’s inaugural poet laureate in 2011.
Temple’s Chat in the Stacks: When Sonia Speaks: A Conversation with Sonia Sanchez was part of a monthlong citywide celebration of the poet, playwright, activist and scholar, who turned 90 in September. To pay tribute, Philadelphia held events such as a marathon reading of selected poems at the Barnes Foundation Art Institute and Gallery, a special screening of the documentary BaddDDD: Sonia Sanchez, a poetry reading by Sanchez’s “literary daughters” including Williams-Witherspoon and a dedication by Mural Arts Philadelphia. Temple Libraries and the Faculty of Color committee hosted the university’s programming, co-sponsored by the Temple University Academic Center on Research in Diversity (ACCORD), the Department of English and the Faculty Senate.
At the end of the conversation, when asked what made her feel proud, Sanchez didn’t name any of her numerous achievements. “My children, my dear friends and the joy of writers writing with each other—the beauty of hearing a great piece of work,” she said.