This new volume by the much-loved poet Sonia Sanchez, her first in over a decade, is music to the ears: a collection of haiku that celebrates the gifts of life and mourns the deaths of revered African American figures in the worlds of music, literature, art, and activism. In her verses, we hear the sounds of Max Roach "exploding in the universe," the "blue hallelujahs" of the Philadelphia Murals, and the voice of Odetta "thundering out of the earth." Sanchez sings the praises of contemporaries whose poetic alchemy turns "words into gems": Maya Angelou, Richard Long, and Toni Morrison. And she pays homage to peace workers and civil rights activists from Rosa Parks and Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm to Brother Damu, founder of the National Black Environmental Justice Network. Often arranged in strings of twelve or more, the haiku flow one into the other in a steady song of commemoration. Sometimes deceptively simple, her lyrics hold a very powerful load of emotion and meaning. There are intimate verses here for family and friends, verses of profound loss and silence, of courage and resilience. Sanchez is innovative, composing haiku in new forms, including a section of moving two-line poems that reflect on the long wake of 9/11. In a brief and personal opening essay, the poet explains her deep appreciation for haiku as an art form. With its touching portraits and by turns uplifting and heartbreaking lyrics, Morning Haiku contains some of Sanchez's freshest, most poignant work. 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, Sanchez’s 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.” --Donna Seaman Sonia Sanchez is a lion in literature's forest. When she writes she roars, and when she sleeps other creatures walk gingerly.—Maya Angelou Praise for Sonia Sanchez "Only a poet with an innocent heart can exorcise so much pain with so much beauty."—Isabel Allende "Sanchez's powers of empathy shine with rare luminosity."—Paula Friedman, The Philadelphia Inquirer " Does Your House Have Lions? is a work of love and art that confirms Ms. Sanchez as one of the nation's finest poets."—Haki R. Madhubuti "The poetry of Sonia Sanchez is full of power and yet always clean and uncluttered. It makes you wish you had thought those thoughts, felt those emotions, and, above all, expressed them so effortlessly and so well."—Chinua Achebe "Her songs of destruction and loss scrape the heart; her praise songs thunder and revitalize. We need these songs for our journey together into the next century."—Joy Harjo Sonia Sanchez —poet, activist, scholar—was the Laura Carnell professor of English and women’s studies at Temple University. She is the recipient of both the Robert Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award. One of the most important writers of the Black Arts movement, Sanchez is the author of sixteen books, including Like the Singing Coming off the Drums (Beacon / 6843-4 / $14.00 pb), Does Your House Have Lions? (Beacon / 6831-1 / $16.00 pb), Wounded in the House of a Friend (Beacon / 6827-4 / $16.00 pb), and Shake Loose My Skin (Beacon / 6853-3 / $14.00 pb). She lives in Philadelphia. 14 haiku (for Emmett Louis Till) 1. Your limbs buried in northern muscle carry their own heartbeat 2. Mississippi… alert with conjugated pain 3. young Chicago stutterer whistling more than flesh 4. your pores wild stars embracing southern eyes 5. foot prints blooming in the night remember your blood 6. in this southern classroom summer settles into winter 7. i hear your pulse swallowing neglected light 8. your limbs fly off the ground little birds… 9. we taste the blood ritual of southern hands 10. blue midnite breaths sailing on smiling tongues 11. say no words time is collapsing in the woods 12. a mother’s eyes remembering a cradle pray out loud 13. walking in Mississippi i hold the stars between my teeth 14. your death a blues, i could not drink away. Used Book in Good Condition