February 1, 2010
Sanchez gives herself over with deep pleasure to the exacting beauty of haiku, a form she has cherished her entire writing life. Winner of the Robert Frost Medal and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award, among many other honors, Sanchez has for decades been a soaring voice in protest against racism, sexism, and other forms of injustice, and in praise of black heritage and culture. Her newest haikus are diamond distillations of complex feelings, painful history, the torrent of language, and oceanic sensuality. Inspired by an array of fellow artists, from Odetta to Max Roach, Elizabeth Catlett to Beauford Delaney, Maya Angelou to Toni Morrison, as well as Oprah Winfrey, Sanchezs bright and dancing poems shimmer with surprising juxtapositions, unexpected flight patterns, and leap frog associations. Their brevity seems built for speed, but their lyricism and warmth inspire lingering, savoring, reading, and rereading, perhaps aloud. Try: in the open / alley a galaxy / of dreams.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)