Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems (Bluestreak)

This collection made me wish I could have known Sonia personally...as a friend, a mentor, at least an associate. I want to pick her brain about some of the poems...others just blew my mind with the artistry of words and excellence of expression.

Mother Sanchez is a poetic legend. Her words are relevant for the time - past and present!

A ‘must read’ whether you are into poetry or not. Sanchez is legendary.

I have found at least seven poems that were included in the 2004 spoken-word record, "Full Moon Of Sonia", so it is great to buy both, check the "lyrics" of the album, and listen to the poet's intonation. As long as I know, only "Homegirls and Handgranades" has been reedited recently, so this is a great opportunity to get an overview of early and new works of this excellent poet, I dare to say one of the most original voices of American poetry in the last half of the century. Although her influences are clear (James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., Amiri Baraka, etc.), and her "Blackness" (as she herself puts it in the story "After Saturday Night Comes Sunday") is evident throughout all her work, she discusses some truly original topics and creates new, dazzling poetic forms just for the sake of it. A great example is "Wounded in the House of a Friend", the poem that gives name to a 1995 collection; it is divided in two "sets" that include not only verse and poetic prose, but also dialogues, some narrative strategies, different personae speaking almost juxtaposed, etc. It is a "collage of forms" which works amazingly well. Sanchez's poetry is definitely innovative, and this anthology is a good proof of it.

An excellent collection of S. Sanchez poetry. ML

Brilliant

wow. sonia's words are magical and breathtaking and... present. her words represent our past, our present and a future that has yet to arrive. forever grateful for her words and her breath and the legacy she is leaving behind. definitely a must read!

It was delivered quick and a quick read

Beautiful