Originally laid in a copy of Sonia Sanchez's
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MSS 099, F912, Sonia Sanchez letter to Jim, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Delaware.
Processed and encoded by Anita Wellner, November 2011.
American poet and educator Sonia Sanchez was born Wilsonia Benita Driver on September 9, 1934, in Birmingham, Alabama. She married and later divorced Albert Sanchez, whose surname she has continued to use.
She earned a B.A. in political science from Hunter College in 1955 and did postgraduate work at New York University, where she studied poetry with Louise Bogan.
Sonia Sanchez began teaching in the San Francisco area in 1965. There she pioneered the development of Black studies courses at what is now San Francisco State University, where she was an instructor from 1968 to 1969. Sanchez has taught at numerous universities and colleges in the United States and lectured throughout the world on such topics as Black culture and literature, women's liberation, as well as peace and racial justice.
She was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University, where she began teaching in 1977. By her retirement in 1999 she held Temple University's Laura Carnell Chair in English.
In addition to more than a dozen books of poetry, Sanchez has published numerous plays and children's book. Some of her collections of poetry are
Sonia Sanchez's contributions to poetry, civil rights and issues of justice have been honored with numerous awards, including the Lucretia Mott Award in 1984, the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Excellence in the Humanities for 1988, the Peace and Freedom Award from Women International League for Peace and Freedom in 1989, a Langston Hughes Poetry Award in 1999, the Poetry Society of America's 2001 Robert Frost Medalist, and in 2009 the Robert Creeley Award.
American poet Sonia Sanchez wrote this letter to Jim to accompany an inscribed copy of her new book,
Though undated, the letter was probably written in the fall of 1970, the year
In addition to sending the book, Sanchez inquired about Jim's deadline for her article on "blk/theatre," and remarked that she was tired and "had a bad yr," because of the lengthy commute to Rutgers.
This item forms part of MSS 099 Miscellaneous Literary and Historical Manuscripts.