30 Under 30 23/30: Sofia Snow

“You will not fade me,
dim my design,
turn my bright
into your shadow.”
-from List of Demands

Sometimes people are just plain talented and it is insane to watch. What’s even more beautiful is to see fluidity in someone’s work, where you can’t separate what they do in one medium from another. As a poet, MC, dancer, organizer, and simply extraordinary human being, Sofia Snow is about the work of healing and calling us to action, putting more purpose to our blood and minds than just being. Sofia, whether using her pen on the page or her body on a stage, calls us in with her fierce, sharp wit and cunning bravery. Sofia demands the world to get in line, to act like it has good sense; whether she is waxing on God, love, race, gender, or whatever blade she chooses, Sofia cuts us to the core, lets the most tender parts of us bathe in the light, and asks us to be critical of the world we shield our most delicate selves from. Sofia does the work to make the spaces we live in better. It makes sense that her art does that: she has been a youth organizer since she was a youth herself. She is constantly going above and beyond to improve the lives of young people and all of us. The city of Boston named a day after her. Sofia Snow is a perfect day, folks! Her work has the audacity to grow, to need and claim it’s wants. Sofia is able to juggle all of her blessing and talents, all of her obligations, and still come up with the time to create brilliance. She is a Bostonian to the core, her resilience, her strength, her humor, her power, all demands it’s space and gets it too. If you aren’t already, get into Sofia Snow folks. It’s a good thing for you, for your world, for the world we want to be. 


-Danez Smith

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