Ballad

The Black Arts Movement (BAM) of which Sanchez participated reached its peak in the 1960s and 1970s, the decades leading up to Sanchez’s release of Homegirls and Handgrenades in the mid-1980s. BAM’s origins in the 1960s are usually attributed to playwright and poet Amiri Baraka, also known as LeRoi Jones. The movement is often seen as the second Harlem Renaissance, yet with more radical political viewpoints fueling artmaking and liberation. After the assassination of Malcolm X, Baraka founded the Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School in New York. Despite the prominence of New York as the scene for BAM, the movement spread across the country. In the 1960s, Sanchez was part of Black Arts West, a group of established Black artists in California and other West Coast cities. As BAM increased its membership, the number of conflicts about the direction of the group also increased and, eventually, the movement could not remain a large entity.

In “Ballad,” Sanchez, through the speaker’s words, expresses the beauty of urban speech. She also shows a level of confidence in the words of the speaker who is addressing a younger youth, a leadership dynamic that was a part of BAM. On a personal note, during the time of writing this poem, Sanchez was in her early 50s with grown children.