For many of the professors and K-12 teachers who traveled to James Madison University in Virginia from Texas, Illinois and Georgia to study the literary works of poet, playwright, activist and scholar Sonia Sanchez, their journey also represented a pilgrimage.
“As an emerging poet, and a woman of color, it was imperative for me to be here,” says Patricia Biela, a substitute K-12 language arts teacher in Hampton, Va., of the weeklong seminar sponsored in June by the Furious Flower Poetry Center at James Madison University.
Dr. Meta DuEwa Jones, who teaches African-American poetry at the University of Texas at Austin, says, “To come here was like being able to sit at the feet of the elders.”
On the first day of the seminar, the 29 participants were able to get up close and personal with Sanchez. When she arrived to applause and awe, Sanchez sat down in an unexpected place — in the classroom with the participants for the entire week. For those who attended the inaugural seminar in 2009 to honor Lucille Clifton, they interacted with Clifton only on the final day of class.
The Teacher and Student
Now 76, Sanchez — whose teaching and literary career has spanned more than 40 years — is still a tiny package filled with fire and light. She is a poet ever ready to divulge how she birthed new poetic forms while raising twin boys; and how she “became this woman with razorblades between her teeth,” railing against injustice and “spitting out words that America paid attention to.”
With Sanchez in the room, writer and radio personality Antoinette Brim was at first a bit intimidated to read the artist’s work aloud when it was her turn to recite verses from Homecoming, Sanchez’s first collection of poetry published in 1969. But when Brim finished, Sanchez applauded and presented one of many impromptu teachable moments.
