11
FRIDAY
Sonia Sanchez is one of the strongest and most enduring voices to have come out of the Black Arts movement. From Homegirls and Handgrenades to her latest book, Does Your House Have Lions?, her writing is always solid, always political, always on time. In brilliant language that moves seamlessly between academic and vernacular, formal and free, Sanchez presents a personal account of her brother’s death from AIDS and the family’s response. Written in lyrical, rhymed seven-line stanzas, each on its own page, Does Your House Have Lions? is powerful work. Sanchez’s distinctive deliverya mixture of whispers, chants, and repeated and stuttered phrasescalls the words up off the page, bringing them to life in a way few poets can. Sanchez reads at noon at Martin Luther King Memorial Library, 901 G St. NW. FREE. (202) 727-1281; 7 p.m. at Oxon Hill Library, 6200 Oxon Hill Rd., Oxon Hill. FREE. (301) 699-3500; and 1 p.m. Saturday at Vertigo Books, 1337 Connecticut Ave. NW. FREE. (202) 429-9272. (Holly Bass)