Sonia Sanchez--poet, activist, scholar--was Laura Carnell professor of English and women's studies at Temple University. She is the recipient of both the Robert Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award. One of the most important writers of the Black Arts movement, Sanchez is the author of 16 books, including Morning Haiku, her first new collection of poetry in more than a decade, published by Beacon Press in February 2010. 
On your nightstand now:
Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngugi wa Thiong'o; The Kenning Anthology of Poets Theater: 1945–1980, edited by Kevin Killian and David Brazil; Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama by Peniel E. Joseph.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett because it kept my daydreams alive, in a sense.
Your top six authors:
W.E.B. DuBois because he was a genius of the 20th century. Toni Morrison because she put African-American women on a world stage for examination and love. Maya Angelou because she gave us one of the classic autobiographies, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and significant poetry of the 20th century. James Baldwin because he was an exquisite essayist. If you want to learn how to write an essay, read James Baldwin. Audre Lorde because she was a truth teller of women's rights and gay and lesbian rights. Alice Walker because she is a woman who writes about the liberation and power of black women and therefore all people.
Book you've faked reading:
I never fake read anything. I have never even started a book without finishing it. I don't care how good or bad it was, I always took it to the end. Even if I threw it against the wall when I was finished with it.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara. The novel tells us where we are and bids us to prepare for the future. An experimental novel that engages us in black culture.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions: Fiction, Essays, and Conversations by Toni Cade Bambara, with a preface by Toni Morrison. The reason I was drawn to this book was the beautiful picture of Toni Cade Bambara on the cover, taken when she was struggling through the rigors of cancer--her face and her smile say, "I am still here."
Book that changed your life:
W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk changed my life because when I began to teach this book in 1966–1967 at San Francisco State, it was quickly brought to my attention that DuBois was not an accepted name in the academic setting, along with Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey and Richard Wright. I remember Jean Blackwell Hutson, curator of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, saying to me, "I thought you knew that if you taught these men and women you might create a stir."
Favorite line from a book:
"Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?"--the opening line from The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
I should re-read Beloved by Toni Morrison because it is a book you really need to read four and five and six times. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde because this is a collection of essays that illuminate the culture of women and America. She manages to bring together the different cultures and races, and the differences serve as a positive, not a negative.