Words on Fire Boston

This spring marks the 70th anniversary of the tragic 1933 book burnings in Germany. A few months after the Nazi takeover, torch-carrying youths marched into Bebeplatz Square in Berlin and burned books by nearly 200 authors, including such luminaries as Kafka, Einstein and Mann. ‘Words on Fire,’ an eight-week festival sponsored by Boston museums, Jewish community centers and the public library, ‘explores crucial themes evoked by this seminal event, and why it matters now more than ever before,’ according to the event’s brochure.

If knowledge is power, then ‘Words on Fire’ attempts to reclaim a lost empire through art exhibits, film screenings and lectures. The ‘multi-site festival’ includes screenings of Charlie Chaplin’s movies that deride Hitler, as well as lectures by writers who are as well known for their social criticism as they are for their literary technique. One such thinker is Sonia Sanchez, who appeared at the Boston Public Library last Thursday night to read a few of her poems and discuss their significance.

Sonia Sanchez, the famous African-American poet and activist, is a petite and soft-spoken woman. Listening to her is like hearing your grandmother speak comfortable, easygoing and always willing to tell a story. And though she is all of these things, you quickly forget about her motherliness and remember a line from her poem ‘Style no. 1’: ‘I come from a long line of rough mamas.’

With a firm yet gentle tone, she tells the audience at the Boston Public Library of her time in San Francisco, where she was threatened by the FBI for teaching W.E.B DuBois. Though they went as far as knocking the door down on her little apartment, Sanchez refused to budge from her curriculum because she felt that public recognition of black writers was long overdue. She noted that although Frederick Douglass, the famous ex-slave and orator, outsold both Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, he is rarely taught to the degree that the other two thinkers are in today’s universities.

Since San Francisco State, Sanchez has taught at universities in Massachusetts and Philadelphia and continues to be a major preserver and interpreter of the black experience. She is famous for infusing various cultural experiences into her poetry, like African prayers and rap music. Using repetition to establish a rhythm and imply a chant, she read the following lines: ‘are we not more than hunger and music? / are we not more than harlequins and horns? / are we not more than color and drums? / are we not more than song and dance?’

The poet greatly values the role of young people as carriers of cultural tradition. Referring to the war in Iraq, Sanchez said, ‘Let the old people go and fight the war, and let the younger people run this country,’ to an enthusiastic and applauding audience. She encouraged the younger, poetic hopefuls in the audience to continue their involvement in literature. ‘Keep on poeting,’ she said. ‘We need young people like you.’