Home > Author > Sonia Sanchez
1 " Come windless invaderI am a carnival ofStars, a poem of blood. "
― Sonia Sanchez
2 " No. Don't never go looking for love girl. Just wait. It'll come. Like the rain fallin' from the heaven, it'll come. Just don't never give up on love. "
― Sonia Sanchez , Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems
3 " I write to keep in contact with our ancestors and to spread truth to people. "
4 " Let her be. She got a right to be different. She gonna stumble on herself one of these days. Just let the child be. "
5 " What do I think about my neighbors? These people. These people who have sprayed the word nigger on my door. These people who finally threatened my children. My children did you hear me? Have you ever held a child in your arms while she shook her insides out? She was so scared I cried her to sleep. How do you ever tell a child again that she's safe? Huh?What do I think of these people? Huh? What should anyone think? What should you reporters think? What should the city think? What should the mayor think? What should the country think? "
6 " did ya ever cryBlack man, did ya ever crytil you knocked all over?- Haiku "
7 " For we the people will always be arrivinga ceremony of thunder waking up the earth opening our eyes to human monuments. And it'll get better it'll get betterif we the people work, organize, resist,come together for peace, racial, socialand sexual justice it'll get better it'll get better. "
8 " It is essential that we always repeat: we the people, we the people, we the people. "
9 " i told them that men and women are measured by their acts not by their swaggering speech or walk, or the money they have stashed between their legs. "
10 " And you challenged us to breathe in Bernard Haring's words: the materialistic growth--mania for more and more production and more and more markets for selling unnecessary and even damaging products is a sin against the generation to come what shall we leave to them: rubbish, atomic weapons numerous enough to make the earth uninhabitable, a poisoned atmosphere, polluted water? "
11 " And you told us: the storm is rising against the privileged minority of the earth, from which there is no shelter in isolation or armament and you told us: the storm will not abate until a just distribution of the fruits of the earth enables men (and women) everywhere to live in dignity and human decency. "
12 " This is the time for the creative Man. Woman. Who must decide that She. He. Can live in peace. Racial and sexual justice on this earth.This is the time for you and me.African American. Whites. Latinos.Gays. Asians. Jews. NativeAmericans. Lesbians. Muslims.All of us must finally burythe elitism of race superioritythe elitism of sexual superioritythe elitism of economic superioritythe elitism of religious superioritySo we welcome you on the celebrationof 218 years Philadelphia. America. "
13 " but i am what i am. woman. alone amid all this noise. "
14 " The news of [James Baldwin's] death reached me in Trinidad around midnight. I was lecturing in the country about African-American literature and liberation, longevity and love, commitment and courage. I could not sleep. I got up and walked out of my hotel room into a night filled with stars. And I sat down in the park and talked to him. About the world. About his work. How grateful we all are that he walked on the earth, that he breathed, that he preached, that he came toward us baptizing us with his holy words. And some of us were saved because of him. Harlem man. Genius. Piercing us with his eyes and his pen. How to write of this beautiful big-eyed man who took on the country with his words? How to make anyone understand his beauty in a country that hates Blacks? "
15 " When I first saw [James Baldwin] on television in the early sixties, I felt immediately a kinship with this man whose anger and disappointment with America's contradictions transformed his face into a warrior's face, whose tongue transformed our massacres into triumphs. And he left behind a hundred TV deaths: scholars, writers, teachers, and journalists shipwrecked by his revivals and sermons. And the Black audiences watched and shouted amen and felt clean and conscious and chosen. "
16 " Today, home from Trinidad, I thank James Arthur Baldwin for his legacy of fire. A fine rain of words when we had no tongues. He set fire to our eyes. Made a single look, gesture endure. Made a people meaningful and moral. Responsible finally for all our sweet and terrible lives. "
17 " Answer me. Where does a Black woman go when she is me, trailed by myths that this country has invented about her? Where to go to, when all of you have been there already, and claimed the turf as your own and you watch the rest of us shipwrecked by circumstance and color, looking. Waiting. Needing. "
18 " i saw you vincent van gogh perched on those pennsylvania cornfields communing amid secret black bird societies. yes. "
19 " this day is notreal. the crowing ofthe far-awaycarillons ringout directionless. even you areun real roastingunder a manhattan skywhile passersby flaptheir indecent tongues.even i am unreal but iam black andthought to bewithout meaning.- on seeing Pacifist burn "
20 " I cannot tell the truth about anything unless I confess being a student, growing and learning something new every day. The more I learn, the clearer my view of the world becomes. "
