PROGRAM
Hunter College President Nancy Cantor invites you to attend American Voices: An Evening with Sonia Sanchez — A 90th Birthday Celebration.
“You have spoken for us… written for us… sung to us… how much in your debt we are.”
-Toni Morrison
Sonia Sanchez is one of the most esteemed voices in all of contemporary American literature. A founding member of the Black Arts Movement and pioneer of education who taught the first courses in feminism and Black Studies, she is the author of award-winning poetry, plays, short stories, essays, and children’s books. Her more than 20 volumes of poetry have earned her an array of honors—from the American Book Award to the Langston Hughes Medal. In 2021, her Collected Poems gathered for the first time work spanning all four decades of her extraordinary and unparalleled literary career.
Marking the occasion of her recent 90th birthday, please join us as Hunter College welcomes back one of its most celebrated alumna, and commemorates Sanchez’s lasting contributions to the world of arts and letters. Following words of appreciation from three outstanding poets and writers—Ama Birch, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and Quincy Troupe—the evening will culminate with a reading from Ms. Sanchez herself, as she takes to the podium to grace the audience with a selection of her poetry.
Earning her bachelor’s in 1955, Sanchez began her journey at Hunter College. It was at Hunter, she would later say, that she started her earliest explorations of the power of writing—and, by the time she graduated, she had discovered the poetic voice for which she would become known.
Ama Birch is the author of (Spirit); The Bird Trade; Yesterday, Tomorrow, Today; Faces in the Clouds; and Sonnet Boom! She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts Performance from the SUNY New Paltz and an MFA in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts. Her work has appeared in A Gather of the Tribes and The Brooklyn Rail. A recipient of a New York City Arts Corps grant, she teaches at Hunter College.
Rachel Eliza Griffiths is the author of Miracle Arrhythmia; The Requited Distance; Mule & Pear; Lighting the Shadow; and Promise: A Novel. Griffiths is known for her literary portraits, fine art photography, and lyric videos. Her extensive video project, P.O.P (Poets on Poetry), an intimate series of micro-interviews, gathers nearly 100 contemporary poets in conversation, and is featured online by the Academy of American Poets. Griffiths’ collection of poetry and photography, Seeing the Body, was selected as the winner of the 2021 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award in Poetry, the winner of the 2021 Paterson Poetry Prize, and was nominated for a 2020 NAACP Image Award.
Quincy Troupe is an award-winning author of 12 volumes of poetry, three children’s books, and six non-fiction works. Among his best-selling books are Miles: The Autobiography of Miles Davis and his memoir, Miles & Me. Other notable works are The Pursuit of Happyness, an autobiography written with Chris Gardner that became a major motion picture starring Will Smith; The Architecture of Language (poems), which won the 2007 Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement; and Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems, winner of the 2003 Milt Kessler Poetry Award. In 2010, Troupe received the American Book Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement.
Sonia Sanchez is the author of Homecoming; We a BaddDDD People; I’ve Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems; Homegirls and Handgrenades; Shake Loose My Skin; and Collected Poems, among other volumes. She edited the anthologies We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans and 360 Degrees of Blackness Coming at You. Her plays include Black Cats and Uneasy Landings and I’m Black When I’m Singing, I’m Blue When I Ain’t. Among her many honors are the American Book Award, the Robert Creeley Award, the Frost Medal, the Wallace Stevens Award, the Edward MacDowell Medal, the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Lucretia Mott Award, the Langston Hughes Medal, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, and the Robert Frost Medal for a distinguished lifetime of service to poetry. Sanchez held the Laura Carnell Chair in English and Women’s Studies at Temple University, where she was the first Presidential Fellow. She has lectured at more than 500 colleges and universities in the United States and read her poetry in countries around the world from Africa, Europe, and China to Canada, Australia, and the Caribbean.
American Voices is a lecture-symposium series at Hunter College directed by Paul Alexander. This is the fourth American Voices event held at Roosevelt House; the previous three focused on Sylvia Plath, Billie Holiday, and Sandra Cisneros.
