Poets Sonia Sanchez and Major Jackson on Legacy and the Joys of Teaching

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Pew Fellowships in the Arts, Pew Fellows and poets Sonia Sanchez and Major Jackson visited the Center for a conversation about artistic practice, the rewards of teaching, and Sanchez’s influence on younger generations of poets, including Jackson, who studied under Sanchez at Temple University. “I maintain that to be a really good poet, you have got to daydream,” Sanchez says, reflecting on her life as a poet.

The author of more than a dozen books of poetry, including the new release “Collected Poems” (2021), Sonia Sanchez has been honored with the Frost Medal, a Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, a Women International League for Peace and Freedom Award, and the Lucretia Mott Award, among many others.

Major Jackson’s most recent publications include "The Absurd Man" (2020), “Roll Deep” (2015), and the collections “Holding Company” (2010) and “Hoops” (2006)—both finalists for NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. A recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and a Fellowship from the Witter Bynner Foundation, Library of Congress, Jackson is a professor at the University of Vermont.

Filmed on April 25, 2017.
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The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (the Center) is a multidisciplinary grantmaker and hub for knowledge-sharing, dedicated to fostering a vibrant cultural community in Greater Philadelphia. The Center invests in ambitious, imaginative, and catalytic work that showcases the region’s cultural vitality and enhances public life, and we engage in an ongoing exchange of ideas concerning artistic and interpretive practice with a broad network of cultural practitioners and leaders.