Sonia B. Sanchez

Sonia Sanchez—poet, activist, scholar—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.

An essential author of the Black Arts Movement, Sanchez is the author of more than 20 books: including Homecoming (1969), We a BaddDDD People (1970), Love Poems (1973), I've Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems (1978), A Sound Investment (1980), Homegirls and Handgrenades (1984), Under a Soprano Sky (1987), Wounded in the House of a Friend (1995), Does Your House Have Lions? (1997), Like the Singing Coming off the Drums (1998), Shake Loose My Skin (1999), Morning Haiku (2010), and Collected Poems (2021). In addition to being a contributing editor to Black Scholar and The Journal of African Studies, she has edited an anthology, We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans (1973).

Sanchez has lectured at more than 500 universities and colleges in the United States and has traveled extensively, reading her poetry in Africa, Cuba, England, the Caribbean, Australia, Europe, Nicaragua, the People’s Republic of China, Norway, and Canada. 

She earned her B.A. in Political Science from Hunter College, did postgraduate work at New York University, and studied poetry under the mentorship of poet Louise Bogan.