Skip to Main Content

Sonia Sanchez

2013 Speaker

Sonia Sanchez is a poet, mother, professor and national and international lecturer on black culture and literature, women’s liberation, peace and racial justice. She is an avid sponsor of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and serves as a board member for MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization that uses human rights to advance social justice. Sanchez is the author of over 20 books; her most recent title is “Morning Haiku” (Beacon Press, 2010), and the recipient of countless awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts award. Her book, “Does Your House Have Lions?” was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the Poetry Society of America’s 2001 Robert Frost Medalist and a Ford Freedom Scholar from the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. She was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University and held the Laura Carnell Chair in English at Temple University. Currently, Sanchez is one of 20 African American women featured in “Freedom Sisters,” an interactive exhibition created by the Cincinnati Museum Center and Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition. In December of 2011, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter selected Sanchez as Philadelphia’s first Poet Laureate, calling her “the longtime conscience of the city.”