Wounded in the House of a Friend (Bluestreak) [Paperback]

Sonia Sanchez (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bluestreak | Publication Date: April 30, 1997

Renowned African-American poet Sonia Sanchez explores the pain, self-doubt, and anger that emerge in women's lives: an unfaithful life partner, a brutal rape, the murder of a woman by her granddaughter, the ravages of drugs. Sanchez transforms the unspoken and sometimes violent betrayals of our lives into a liberating vision of connection in emotional redemption, compassion, and self-fulfillment.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sanchez (Under a Soprano Sky), along with Nikki Giovanni, was a major player in the early 1970s as African American women began to explore feminist, political and cultural issues in poetry. Focusing on performance as an integral aspect of craft, Sanchez prepared the way for such writers as Ntozake Shange. Much of this book (her first in eight years) pays back debts; in a mixture of poetry and prose, she commemorates a quarter century of Essence magazine and offers memorial pieces for James Baldwin and Malcolm X. Sanchez is at her best, however, when she places her speaker in the furious center of criminal action: a raped woman's detailed account of her attack, a woman trading her seven-year-old daughter for crack ("he held the stuff out/ to me and i cdn't remember/ her birthdate i cdn't remember/ my daughter's face"). A brilliant narrative is offered in the voice of a Harlem woman struggling with (and eventually hammered to death by) her junkie granddaughter. After such emotion, Sanchez turns to a series of minuscule poems based on Japanese forms that blunt rather than intensify her breathless energy.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this collection, former National Endowment for the Arts and American Book Award winner Sanchez presents a homage to African Americans, both past and present. Neruda said political poetry is more deeply emotional than any other poetry except love poetry. But poetry is not all raw emotion; and as art, these poems usually leave much to be desired. Take for example, "it wassssssssssssssssssssss/the raping that was bad/it was the raping" and "It is not strange that we have men and women/of conscience here tonite who in defending and/defining Black culture defend the country. The world./Humanity as well." Occasionally, the language soars, but these moments are few and far between. Also included are a Nicaraguan journal in prose, poems about a young woman with a drug problem, a prose/poetry mix about an unfaithful husband, and a selection of haiku and tanka. One gets the impression the author has cleaned out her drawers to fill this hodgepodge. For large and special collections only.
Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, Ind.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (April 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807068276
• ISBN-13: 978-0807068274
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.3 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,166 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captures Essence of Latina Experience in America, June 15, 2005

By 

Carol Singer (Vancouver, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wounded in House of a Friend (Hardcover)

Sonia Sanchez is the Laura Carnell Professor of English and Women's Studies at Temple University and a national lecturer. She is the author of thirteen books and recipient of many awards and honors, including a National Endowment for the Arts grant and the Peace and Freedom Award from the Women's International Leaque for Peace and Freedom.

In Wounded in the House of a Friend, Sanchez uses poetry and prose to create scenes from life that flow from unhappy relationships to moments of pride when Malcolm X speaks or Nelson Mandela walks from his South African prison, fist raised in victory, to a desperate, crack-addicted mother abandoning her child to her supplier for a few more days of escape.

I read one review that said her book makes you think. I found myself "feeling" even more than thinking. Her narration of a rape scene was so realistic, I had trouble getting through it to the end, it made me feel so emotional.

Her use of the sounds and rhythm of language, make her scenes and characters come to life, "stop it now girl, i ain't studyin you, stop shovin me, stop it now, you ain't gittin no mo money, jest the ten dollars," says a grandmother who is guardian to her teenaged granddaugher and doesn't know how to stop her from using drugs. The grandmother reaches toward the girl with "these hands that worked in every house in Bklyn" and remembers that "i picked her up from her tricycle." The reader is transported to the room where the grandmother is trying to understand as the little girl she picked up from her tricycle not too many years ago is now attacking her for "mo money" and beating her to death.

Sanchez' scenes are sometimes graphic and tragic, sometimes pulsating and erotic, and they capture life as some of us can only imagine it in the poor neighborhoods of big cities.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent poetic storytelling!, February 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Wounded in the House of a Friend (Bluestreak) (Paperback)

Ms. Sanchez paints a picture with her words. The words remind you of yourself, your mom, aunt, grandmother, friend or any woman you know who has experienced love, knows about the effect of drugs on family, lived through American wars, understands the experience and history at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and simply can relate to the African American woman's experience or whoever wants to know about it from one black woman's experience. This book is great reading.