Wounded in the House of a Friend (Bluestreak)

by Sonia Sanchez

Book Overview

An exploration of the pain, self-doubt, and anger that emerge in women's lives, from a leading writer of the Black Arts Movement and the American Poetry Society's 2018 Wallace Stevens Award-winner.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807068276
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Length: 108 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.3" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

Captures Essence of Latina Experience in America

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.

Excellent poetic storytelling!

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.