and through you i have learned how to possess the secret of joy
because you have taught me i will call you my sister and hold your beautiful face in my hands knowing that once however briefly i have touched greatness The second time I met Sonia Sanchez she was standing outside a classroom at my university. Initially my eye was drawn to the liquid tints of the sheer scarf covering her hair-she was in so many ways a woman of color. I was then struck by how short this powerful, engaging woman was. As Dudley Randall says in the introduction to Sonia's book We A BaddDDD People, "This tiny woman with the infant's face attacks the demons of this world with the fury of a sparrow defending her fledglings in the nest." Not even five feet tall, she possesses a rare strength and grace, and, as I would soon discover, the voice of an angel. Not a sweet, comforting guardian, but a terrible messenger of God, a creature whose song shatters bone, and whose gaze burns the eyes from their sockets. As a writer and an individual she defies convention. During workshop Sonia closes her eyes when speaking of writing, sometimes for several minutes, as if trying to recall the words to a longforgotten prayer. But it is when she opens her eyes that the real power is revealed. For while she exudes perpetual strength and confidence, it is the eyes which communicate her spirit to the world. This spirit is as visible today as it was thirty years ago where in a book portrait the poet holds her chin high and proud, gold-hoop earrings framed by a six-inch Mro, eyes angry and saying resist, respect, remember. Energy such as this cannot be readily contained, and it has to a
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