Breathing

doi:10.1017/9781108386043.006

Chapter 3 - Breathing

Sonia Sanchez’s Call to Coalition Building

from I - Poetry and Music

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2022

Patricia Herrera

Edited by

Shelly Eversley

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Shelly Eversley: Affiliation:
Baruch College, The City University of New York

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Summary

Against the backdrop of 2020’s global pandemic, we witnessed the brutal murder of George Floyd. His words “I can’t breathe” hang heavy in the air, haunting our contemporary moment, as the white police officer squeezes his breath out of him. It is with this urgency in mind that this chapter turns to Sonia Sanchez’s methodology of breath and breathing. The breath and breathing practice, as Sanchez explains, helps us to “be much more healthy and ... maintain this climate the way it needs to be maintained.” This essay aims to not only garner a greater understanding of the resonances among people of color across time and space but also moves toward coalition-building as a methodology for today’s time of crisis.

Keywords

Latinx breath politics and poetics racism

Type: Chapter
Information: African American Literature in Transition, 1960–1970
Black Art, Politics, and Aesthetics
, pp. 74 - 89

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108386043.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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Chapter 3 - Breathing

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