SOURCE: Gabbin, Joanne Veal. “The Southern Imagination of Sonia Sanchez.” In Southern Women Writers: The New Generation, pp. 180-203. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Gabbin focuses on the literary career of Sonia Sanchez, stressing her blending of political and personal, urban and rural elements in her works.

Death is a five o'clock door forever changing time. And wars end. Sometimes too late. I am here. Still in Mississippi. Near the graves of my past. We are at peace … I have my sweet/astringent memories because we dared to pick up the day and shake its tail until it became evening. A time for us. Blackness, Black people. Anybody can grab the day and make it stop. Can you my friends? Or maybe it's better if I ask:

Will you?¹

The woman who utters this challenge at the end of Sonia Sanchez's play Sister...