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Poetry Month Giveaway: Win a Sonia Sanchez Poster

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In honor of Poetry Month, Beacon Press will give away five posters featuring a poem from Sonia Sanchez's Morning Haiku, now available in paperback. Enter once a day before noon EST Friday, April 29. The poster features the poem:

4 haiku
    (for Nubia)

1.

Telephone wires sang
her voice over
soft sister laughter

2.

you held us
with summer stained
smiles of hope

3.

i hold your
breath today...you sail home
across the ocean

4.

i see you Nubia
walking your Mississippi walk
God in your hands.

 

To find out more and enter our drawing, visit the Sonia Sanchez website.

A Poet Lifts Her Voice in Honor of Dr. Dorothy Irene Height

We invite you to spend some time with Sonia Sanchez, the award-winning poet whom Maya Angelou called, "a lion in literature's forest." Find poems, upcoming events, and a warm note of welcome from the poet at her new website. You can read about Sanchez's recent appearance at the 10th annual National Black Writers' Conference over at Essence.com.

In tribute to Dr. Dorothy Irene Height, Essence.com has a beautiful feature here, including this testament by Sanchez:

"She was an amazing woman to travel with, so full of information that you just sat next to her and opened up your pores to receive the wisdom. What I think is important for people to understand about Dr. Height is that she was an intellectual, along with being a woman who got things done. She worked very hard and organized but she did it with intellect. Imagine the meeting between God and Dr. Height when she says all the things that she did on this earth."

Selected from the poem 9 haiku

(for Freedom's Sisters)

(Dr. Dorothy Irene Height)

    I
your words
helped us reconnoiter
the wonder of women

    II
woman sequestered
in the hurricane
of herstory...

Sanchez, Sonia. "9 haiku (for Freedom's Sisters)." Morning Haiku. Boston: Beacon Press, 2010. Please do not distribute this work without permission. You may submit requests to reprint the work of Sonia Sanchez from titles published by Beacon Press through its website.

Sonia Sanchez: 9 Haiku (for Freedom's Sisters)

In honor of Black History Month, here is a poem from Morning Haiku by Sonia Sanchez, celebrating nine black women who changed history. You can enter to win a copy of Morning Haiku in our Black History Month giveaway, and you can read a Q&A with Sonia Sanchez in the Philadelphia Weekly.

9 haiku
(for Freedom's Sisters)

1.
(Kathleen Cleaver)
quicksilver
panther woman speaking
in thunder

2.
(Charlayne Hunter-Gault)
summer silk woman
brushing the cobwebs
off Southern legs

3.
(Shirley Chisholm)
We saw your
woman sound footprinting
congressional hallways

4.
(Betty Shabazz)
your quiet face
arrived at a road
unafraid of ashes . . .

5.
(Fannie Lou Hamer)
feet deep
in cotton you shifted
the country's eyes

6.
(Barbara Jordan)
Texas star
carrying delicate words
around your waist

7.
(Rosa Parks)
baptizer of
morning light walking us away
from reserved spaces

8.
(Myrlie Evers-Williams)
you rescued women and men
from southern subscriptions
of death

9.
(Dr. Dorothy Irene Height)
I
your words
helped us reconnoiter
the wonder of women

II
woman sequestered
in the hurricane
of herstory . . .

Sanchez, Sonia. "9 haiku (for Freedom's Sisters)." Morning Haiku. Boston: Beacon Press, 2010. Please do not distribute this work without permission. You may submit requests to reprint the work of Sonia Sanchez from titles published by Beacon Press through its website.

Read more about the women featured in this poem:

Kathleen Cleaver
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Shirley Chisholm
Betty Shabazz
Fannie Lou Hamer
Barbara Jordan
Rosa Parks
Myrlie Evers-Williams
Dr. Dorothy Irene Height

Sonia Sanchez: 4 haiku (for Eugene Redmond)

As a companion to today's post from Helene Atwan about attending a 75th birthday celebration for poet Sonia Sanchez, here is a poem from Sanchez's forthcoming Morning Haiku, written for the poet Eugene Redmond.

4 haiku
(for Eugene Redmond)

1.
Blue atom
poet transcribing
our flesh

2.
your quicksilver
words waterfalling in
sweet confession

3.
you have taken down
the morning turned it into
a roar of blackness

4.
your poems...
butterflies fluttering down
to earth.

Sanchez, Sonia. "4 haiku (for Eugene Redmond)." Morning Haiku. Boston: Beacon Press, 2010.

Sonia Sanchez: haiku (for Maya Angelou)

Today's post is a poem from Sonia Sanchez, which will be included in her forthcoming collection, Morning Haiku. Sanchez-- a poet, activist, and scholar-- is one of the most important writers of the Black Arts Movement, and was the Laura Carnell Professor of English and Women's Studies at Temple University. She is the recipient of both the Robert Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award. 

haiku
(for Maya Angelou)

1.

You have

taught us how

to pray

2.

your poems

yellow tattoos on the

morning dew

3.

we dance

in the eye

of your pores

4.

in a sudden

pause of breath

secrets unlock

5.

you show us

how to arrange our

worldly selves

6.

your poems

a landscape of

seabirds.