Poet, playwright and activist Sonia Sanchez has been chosen as the recipient for this year’s Edward MacDowell Medal.
On July 10, Sanchez’s lifetime accomplishments will be honored in the first in-person ceremony since 2019 in Peterborough, New Hampshire where she will be given the award by writers Nell Painter and Walter Mosley.
“I had tears in my eyes as I learned about this award,” said Sanchez in a press release. “When I consider my dear friend, Sister Toni, and so many others who have been given this award, I feel so welcomed to be part of that group. It is a great honor to be this year’s awardee.”
Named after the 19th-century composer, the Edward MacDowell Medal celebrates the lifetime accomplishments of icons who have contributed to culture and arts. Previous winners include author and Nobel-prize winner Toni Morrison, artist Georgia O’Keefe, poet Robert Frost, musician Sonny Rollins, writer Joan Didion and, most recently, musician Rosanne Cash.
Sanchez is being honored for her work during the Black Arts Movement in the 1960s, a nationalist movement that put emphasis on art by Black creators. Her contributions include successfully campaigning for one of the first departments about Black studies in a mostly white university and helping pioneer Black feminism. She’s also credited with infusing African American Vernacular English, also known as AAVE, into published writing and creating the first course on Black women and literature in the U.S.
Sanchez was also a part of the Civil Rights Movement as an active member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the organization that launched the Freedom Rides and worked closely alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Starting from 1969 when her first book, Home Coming, was published, Sanchez has released more than a dozen poetry books, plays and children’s books, including “We a BaddDDD People” (1970), “Shake Loose My Skin” (1999) and “Morning Haiku” (2010). Throughout her writing, Sanchez has experimented with the rhythmic qualities of words by mixing together blues music with poetry styles such as haiku and tanka.
“Sonia Sanchez’s illustrious career spans seven decades,” said Claudia Rankine, the chairman of the selection panel for the award, in a press release. “Her commanding oeuvre continues to elevate language’s ability to give voice to entire communities (their daily pleasures and pains) inside our shared and troubled history.”
The Edward MacDowell Award is presented by MacDowell, an artist residency program that offers various fellowships to creators to help further culture and the arts. Former MacDowell fellows include author James Baldwin, composer Leonard Bernstein and author Alice Walker.
“MacDowell has such a great herstory and history of caring and concern for artists,” said Sanchez in the press release. “It is a joy this place exists to keep the world on a path toward re-civilization, peace, and humanity.”
