Annette John-Hall: For poet Sanchez, it's life that's always knocking at the door

When I last spoke to internationally acclaimed poet-activist Sonia Sanchez five years ago, she had just performed a New York concert to celebrate the release of

Full Moon of Sonia

, her first spoken-word album in 25 years.

Oh, and she was preparing for a teaching residency at Columbia University during a pause in her packed lecture schedule, in between organizing her papers for the Library of Congress.

When you're one of the foremost figures in African American and women's studies, that's what retirement looks like.

And when you come out of the Black Arts Movement of the '60s, as Sanchez did, the march toward social justice never stops. And Sanchez's quest is invariably tied up in her art - the 16 award-winning books she has written, the haiku she performs, the causes that get her creative juices flowing.

Expounding on her life's work, Sanchez, who held Temple University's Laura Carnell Chair in English for more than 20 years before retiring in 1999, once told an interviewer: "You don't do this for 10 years and then go buy a house in the suburbs somewhere. You do this until you take your last breath."

Hopefully, for those of us who cherish her longtime presence in Philly, that breath is still quite a ways off.

Yep, Sanchez exuded life as she opened the big Dutch door of her Germantown home - a door that belongs on the Treasure House of

Captain Kangaroo

.

"Come in, my sister," said the wisp of a woman with the enormous heart.

Little did I realize I had walked straight into party central.

Sanchez will turn 75 on Wednesday, and she was throwing one of her legendary, late-afternoon-until-whenever bashes sure to draw hundreds of guests from all over the country.

Her house is famous for being open to students and friends, yet she hadn't had a full-on formal bash for a long time.

"I haven't had a party in 12 years, but when the stars aligned at 9-9-9, I knew I had to do it," she said. "This is the ideal time."

Although, really, no time is ideal in Sanchez's world. She will have three books come out in the spring: Morning Haiku, a book of poetry; Exits and Entrances, a book of speeches; and the first part of her memoir, still untitled.

But party planning trumps writing these days.

No Evites allowed. Sanchez's invitations, sent by snail mail on embossed paper, reminded partygoers of the ultimate purpose: "Come, let us celebrate another year of unraveling racism, injustice, homophobia . . ."

While others who count Toni Morrison and Bill Cosby among their best friends may live their lives more exclusively, that's never how Sanchez has rolled.

She's always around.

You could easily run into her in her front-yard garden, at a Whole Foods, or at a Ritz. She's known to pop up at hip-hop concerts, too, where she'll stand in her Birkenstocks for three hours with whippersnappers 50 years her junior.

She loves MCs Talib Kweli and Mos Def and loves rap, which she sees as a grittier form of poetry, but if a rapper "calls someone a 'bitch' or a 'ho,' I'll boo," she declared. "Now, after I boo I'll hug you, but you need to know."

Sanchez's phone rings nonstop. She tries to ignore it but can't.

For the poet, whose passion is words and the human connection they forge, speaking to a friend is an opportunity she just can't pass up.

"There's nothing like hearing a human voice. . . . Danny Glover's voice woke me up this morning, you know?"

She and Glover, the film star, have been friends for 40 years, since she was a professor and he was a student at San Francisco State in the late '60s.

Glover told her he would have to miss the party, because he'd be promoting a film in Toronto.

While she will certainly miss Glover, he is one among many, young and old. "All of my parties are cross-generational. There's no separation in us as artists," Sanchez said.

A chance to reunite - and reignite.

"The nice part about it is some of the same people are coming who came 12 years ago, so that means they're alive, too, right?

"It's about people persevering and continuing to do the work."