SOURCE: "The Southern Imagination of Sonia Sanchez," in Southern Women Writers: The New Generation, edited by Tonette Bond Inge, The University of Alabama Press, 1990, pp. 180-202.

In the following essay, Garbin discusses the themes of Sanchez's works in terms of what she calls "Sanchez's strong Southern imagination, one that was born in the impressionable times of her youth in Alabama, where the tensions of struggle were fed with mama's milk."

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...