Poet Sonia Sanchez to receive Edwin MacDowell Medal

The poet, activist and educator Sonia Sanchez is this year’s winner of the Edward MacDowell Medal, a lifetime achievement honor started in 1960 and previously given to Robert Frost, Toni Morrison and Stephen Sondheim among others

NEW YORK -- The poet, activist and educator Sonia Sanchez is this year's winner of the Edward MacDowell Medal, a lifetime achievement honor started in 1960 and previously given to Robert Frost, Toni Morrison and Stephen Sondheim among others.

“I had tears in my eyes as I learned about this award,” Sanchez, 87, said in a statement released Sunday by MacDowell. “When I consider my dear friend, Sister Toni (Morrison), and so many others who have been given this award, I feel so welcomed to be part of that group. It is a great honor to be this year’s awardee. MacDowell has such a great herstory and history of caring and concern for artists; it is a joy this place exists to keep the world on a path toward re-civilization, peace, and humanity.”

MacDowell is an artist residency founded in 1907, with fellows over the past century including James Baldwin, Leonard Bernstein, Louise Erdrich and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Sanchez was a prominent figure in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and is known for such poetry collections as “Homegirls and Handgrenades” and “Shake Loose My Skin.”