write a haiku about peace and

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what is a haiku?

A haiku poem is made up of three short lines, consisting of a 5/7/5 syllable count. Sometimes.

Sonia breaking the rules:

hands
in the green light saluting peace

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About

Peace is a Haiku song

Mural Arts and First Person Arts are proud to present Peace is a Haiku Song, an interactive public art project that is engaging the global community in an exploration of haiku as a vehicle for peace and urban transformation. This multimedia collaboration is the brainchild of Philadelphia’s first poet laureate, Sonia Sanchez, a legendary peace worker.

Inspired by Sanchez’ belief that the haiku engenders reflection, Peace is a Haiku Song invites Philadelphia residents and beyond to write their personal reflections on peace. Throughout the year, a series of public art projects and events will culminate in a new mural honoring the poet.

The project kicked-off at The First Person Arts Festival on November 13, 2011 with a performance by some of Philadelphia’s most talented writers, musicians and performers. At the kick-off, Sanchez read a new haiku and led the audience in a haiku writing experience, the products of which became part of an art installation by artist Anthony Campuzano and Mural Arts youth artists displayed during the First Person Festival.

Sanchez’ inaugural piece serves as a the first link in a renga or chain of haiku that participants are invited to write through Twitter, Facebook, and a dedicated webpage that will make submissions available to the public via a searchable interface. As Sanchez travels throughout the year, she will introduce thousands of people to the project and encourage them to participate.

Students in Mural Arts’ art education program, in collaboration with professional artists, will create a path of ten teaser murals featuring submitted haiku. These will be like temporary footsteps leading up to the main mural. They will create unexpected moments of word and color, awaken curiosity in passers-by, and generate excitement in the literary and arts communities.

As the individual verses of haiku come together--from the website, the temporary murals, and a permanent mural honoring Sanchez--they will resound with a collective testimony to peace.

Project Goals

  • Honor the legacy, achievements and role of Sonia Sanchez as a poet, author, educator, and lifelong advocate for peace
  • Present the haiku as a vehicle for expressing themes of peace
  • Engage youth in the Mural Arts Education program and introduce them to mixed media arts
  • Introduce students to Sanchez’ literary and humanitarian legacy
  • Extend the reach of Mural Arts’ core audience to a global audience

Sonia Sanchez

Poet. Mother. Professor. National and International lecturer on Black Culture and Literature, Women’s Liberation, Peace and Racial Justice. Sponsor of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Board Member of MADRE. Sonia Sanchez is the author of over 16 books including Homecoming, We a BaddDDD People, Love Poems, I’ve Been a Woman, A Sound Investment and Other Stories, Homegirls and Handgrenades, Under a Soprano Sky, Wounded in the House of a Friend (Beacon Press, 1995), Does Your House Have Lions? (Beacon Press, 1997), Like the Singing Coming off the Drums (Beacon Press, 1998), Shake Loose My Skin (Beacon Press, 1999), and most recently, Morning Haiku (Beacon Press, 2010).



In addition to being a contributing editor to Black Scholar and The Journal of African Studies, Sanchez has edited an anthology, We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans. BMA: The Sonia Sanchez Literary Review is the first African American Journal that discusses the work of Sonia Sanchez and the Black Arts Movement. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts, the Lucretia Mott Award for 1984, the Outstanding Arts Award from the Pennsylvania Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Community Service Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, she is a winner of the 1985 American Book Award for Homegirls and Handgrenades, the Governor’s Award for Excellence

in the Humanities for 1988, the Peace and Freedom Award from Women International League for Peace and Freedom (W.I.L.P.F.) for 1989, a PEW Fellowship in the Arts for 1992-1993 and the recipient of Langston Hughes Poetry Award for 1999. Does Your House Have Lions? was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Sanchez is the Poetry Society of America’s 2001 Robert Frost Medalist and a Ford Freedom Scholar from the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Her poetry also appeared in the movie Love Jones. 



Sonia Sanchez has lectured at over 500 universities and colleges in the United States and has traveled extensively, reading her poetry in Africa, Cuba, England, the Caribbean, Australia, Europe, Nicaragua, the People’s Republic of China, Norway, and Canada. 



She was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University and she held the Laura Carnell Chair in English at Temple University. She is the recipient of the Harper Lee Award, 2004, Alabama Distinguished Writer, and the National Visionary Leadership Award for 2006. She is the recipient of the 2005 Leeway Foundation Transformational Award. Sanchez was the recipient of the Robert Creeley Award in March of 2009, and is currently one of 20 African American women featured in “Freedom Sisters,” an interactive exhibition created by the Cincinnati Museum Center and Smithsonian Institution traveling exhibition.

Mural Arts

The Mural Arts Program is the nation’s largest mural program.  Since 1984, the Mural Arts Program has created over 3,500 murals and works of public art, earning Philadelphia international recognition as the “City of Murals.”  The Mural Arts Program engages over 100 communities each year in the transformation of neighborhoods through the mural-making process, while award-winning, free art education programs serve nearly 1,500 youth at sites throughout the city and at-risk teens through education outreach programs. 

The Mural Arts Program also serves adult offenders in local prisons and rehabilitation centers, using the restorative power of art to break the cycle of crime and violence in our communities. Each year, nearly 10,000 residents and visitors tour the Mural Arts Program’s outdoor art gallery, which has become part of Philadelphia’s civic landscape and a source of pride and inspiration. To learn more: 215-685-0750 | muralarts.org.

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