Title
Recognizing and Honoring Author Sonia Sanchez as the First Poet Laureate of the City of Philadelphia.
Body
WHEREAS, Sonia Sanchez was born Wilsonia Benita Driver on September 9, 1934 in Birmingham, Alabama and upon the passing of her mother, a year after her birth, she lived with her paternal grandmother and other relatives for several years and, in 1943, she and her sister moved to Harlem to live with her father and stepmother; and
WHEREAS, In 1955, Ms. Sanchez earned a B.A. in political science from Hunter College and, later, she completed postgraduate work at New York University and studied poetry with Louise Bogan, the fourth Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress. During this period, Ms. Sanchez formed a writers' workshop in Greenwich Village, attended by Amiri Baraka, Haki R. Madhubuti, and Larry Neal, and long with Mr. Madhubuti, Nikki Giovanni, and Etheridge Knight, she formed the "Broadside Quartet" of young poets; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Sanchez continued to use her former husband's surname in writing and began teaching in the San Francisco area in 1965 and was a pioneer in developing black studies courses at San Francisco State University, where she served as an instructor; and
WHEREAS, Ms. Sanchez has three children and three grandchildren and, in the 1970s, she published various children's books including It's a New Day: Poems for Young Brothas and Sistuhs, The Adventures of Fat Head, Small Head, and Square Head, and A Sound Investment and Other Stories; and
WHEREAS, In 1977, Ms. Sanchez joined the faculty of Temple University and was its first Presidential Fellow and held the Laura Carnall Chair in English until her retirement in 1999 and she has lectured at more than five hundred universities and colleges in the United States and has read her poetry in Africa, Cuba, England, Australia, Nicaragua, Norway, Canada, the Caribbean, and the People's Republic of China; and
...
Click here for full text