Nationhood Re-Formed: Revolutionary Style and Practice in Sonia Sanchez’s Jazz Poetics

Abstract

In several interviews, Sonia Sanchez illustrates the difficulty of pursuing creative work by recounting an incident that took place when she was 12 years old. She had chosen to compose a rhymed poem about George Washington’s famed crossing of the Delaware River to satisfy a writing assignment commemorating the Presidents’ Day holiday. Sanchez’s sister found the poem and read it aloud to the family while Sanchez was busy washing dishes; their appreciative laughter humiliated the young author. After that day, Sanchez concealed her interest in writing, even getting out of bed in the middle of the night so she could work on pieces she had hidden under the bathtub (Cornwell 10; Melhem, “Will and Spirit” 74; Reich 85). Though it highlights her characteristic shyness in public, this incident belies the success Sanchez found in her later career as poet, teacher, and activist. Many of the pieces from her first published book of poetry, Home Coming (1969), urge her audience to find self-confidence in personal worth, as she does. “[P]oem,” for example, begins, “i am black / beautiful” (lines 3–4). Sanchez’s early reluctance to share her work even within the relative safety of her home also suggests, however, that she was already attuned to the signifying power of the writing process.