By Mel Cooke, Freelance WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
SONIA SANCHEZ choked on the power of her own words last Saturday at the Calabash International Literary Festival in Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth.
The poet broke down twice as she read a piece about Norma, someone she knew as a brilliant girl in school and, later, a crack-taking mother of four. The crowd's applause encouraged Ms. Sanchez to continue - but the 'singing' of a cellular phone in the poignant, pregnant pause of her emotions did not help the moment.
In an hour-long presentation, billed as 'Lunch with Sonia Sanchez', she not only read poetry but also tossed in sometimes comical but always pointed commentary.
"I just hope that at some point young people will realise what a good thing it is to get high on life," she said.
She went on to pay homage to Marcus Garvey.
"You have been blessed to have this man, Marcus Garvey. I actually had someone who was trying to teach the Harlem Renaissance without Marcus Garvey. And I told her I will give you a good rating, but if you do it again, I will seek you out," she said, to chuckles from the audience.
"This man came and changed the world," Ms. Sanchez said. "Don't talk about the Harlem Renaissance without talking about Marcus Garvey; don't...not talk about white slavemasters because you are afraid of hurting your white students."
She went back in time to give a humorous anecdote about herself.
"If we did nothing in the 60s, we revived Garvey, Robeson and DuBois," she said, going on to speak about living in San Francisco and getting a knock on her door. She opened it to two FBI agents and her landlord, who demanded that the law enforcement men "Get her out. She is teaching DuBois!"
"And I said yes, I am teaching Black literature and he looked at me like I was stupid. And I was. Because I was teaching culture and history and I thought I was teaching Black literature," she laughed.
She prefaced the poem Reflections on the June 12 'March for Disarmament' with: "You can't contain nuclear war people, because we can't contain our garbage!". Part of the poem read:
I do not come to you to contain nuclear arms
But to contain nuclear generals, nuclear presidents, nuclear scientists...
For those who would be agents for change, Ms. Sanchez had some advice.
"Do not come on the stage if you say you are a revolutionary and you do not know what it means. It means a lifetime of work for your people. A lifetime of work saying I am going to effect change for my people and the people on this planet. It is not looking cute. It is not the applause," she said, before reading Middle Passage, her closing number.
With its opening cackle, the wind rose; during its repeated 'birth' the thunder rolled. 'When the alternating 'live' and 'love' rose and climaxed in a shrill 'live', the applause 'drowned' a few drops of rain on the tent under which the readings were held.
Sonia Sanchez was one of the few - if not the only person - to take a swipe at US President George Bush. After telling the story of him waving to Stevie Wonder, she said: "The emperor has no clothes on, but he is wearing war paint."
