A revival with Sonia Sanchez

The word "reading" seems a inadequate description of a public appearance by poet Sonia Sanchez. "Revival" comes a little closer, simply because of its spiritual connotations. Equal parts sermon, confession and invocation, Sanchez's recitations rarely fail to touch listeners, souls. An audience members may not leave her performances in a state of ecstasy, but none of them leave unmoved.

Sanchez traveled many paths on her way to becoming one of the most admired poets of her generation. Now 63, she has been a civil rights activist, a pioneer in the black-studies movement, a world traveler, a mother, a lover, a daughter, a sister. Through it all she has assembled a varied and extensive repertoire--one that includes plays, children's books and several acclaimed volumes of poetry. (Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums, a collection of new and selected love poems, is due out this month.) Still, the facts listed above are just that: facts. They don't convey the depth and passion that Sanchez brings to her life and work.

Her performances, which incorporate singing, whispering, chanting, praying and phrases from Kiswahili and other African languages, weren't always so eclectic. "I sang for the first time at Brown University in the early '70s," she recalls. She didn't get onstage until midnight, and she began to chant while reading a poem about John Coltrane. She remembers it as a liberating experience. "Until then I was very careful as to how I read because I'm an ex-stutterer. I never wanted my defenses down. I recognized the fact that I had controlled all of that. I now could go to the level that I experienced when writing the poem."

Appearing in Washington, D.C., to discuss her book Does Your House Have Lions? (Beacon Press, 1997), Sanchez is a petite dynamo wrapped in purple. She wears a touch of turquoise at her neck and a strip of kente on her shoulder. Beneath gold hoop earrings, a quintet of cowries dangles from her right temple. At the podium, she puts on her glasses, but it's a largely unnecessary gesture because she closes her eyes almost immediately afterward.

She tells her audience that the tide of her book is taken from a quotation by the late jazz legend Rahsaan Roland Kirk. She explains her interpretation of Kirk's cryptic query: "We need to understand the need to protect each other, to do a reconciliation with our children, our parents, our families and our larger families. Rahsaan was saying that we need to cushion our homes with various lions, be they family members or friends, but also with the love and respect necessary for us all to survive into the 21st century."

Sanchez then describes the structure of her book, which is divided into four sections and follows a formal rhyme-royal pattern. Devoted to the brief life and AIDS-related death of her brother, Lions unfolds its somber saga primarily through the protagonist's voice, his sister's voice and his father's voice. It is often complex, disturbing and challenging.

In Lions, Sanchez makes use of ancestral voices quite handily; a section of the book is devoted to them. "I envisioned the last section as father, sister and brother in counterpoint, but the ancestors insisted on being included," she says. African words and phrases invoke a sense of timelessness and emphasize the connection between the past experiences of black Americans and their present lives. "I do believe that we are probably in contact with forces greater than us or ancestors or whatever you want to call it."

Sanchez credits the ancestral section with helping to make her book accessible and relevant to readers, expanding its scope in the process. "Ostensibly, it's about just one family, but it's about this large family that has lived in America. We must at some point understand our history and her story and our ancestors. We must open our eyes to ancestors to help us live and stay alive."

In direct yet poetic language, the ancestral voices in Sanchez's book warn readers never to forget the past:

it is necessary to remember the sea holding your ancestors in a night-mare of waves smooth breasts of warfare

The poet aims to challenge her audience with multilayered, frequently allusive material. "I would always give them an out before," she says, "but this time I said: "You've got to stick with me. I want it stamped on your brains and your hearts.' I'm demanding that they stay with the form, that they read it and reread it, that they listen for subtle things that are there, words pushed together that make them stare and blink or not blink."

Sanchez places the same demands on her students. Although she has taught and lectured at many schools, she has spent the last 20 years at Temple University in Philadelphia. She says that she urges her students to avoid overkill and histrionics in their work and to instead pursue the subtle power of well-chosen words. She wonders if the tendency to bellow and roar stems from the popularity of poetry slams. "The first time I heard the phrase, I jumped because [poetry] is not that," she says. "I'm hoping that it will turn around so people will understand that this is not where the stuff should be coming from. It's finally about craft and sharing the stage."