This author delves into the complexities of the human spirit, exploring intricate relationships and societal undercurrents. Her writing is characterized by sharp insight and a poetic voice that draws readers into her distinct worlds. Often touching upon themes of identity and belonging, her work offers a powerful and singular perspective. Readers discover deeply moving and thought-provoking narratives that resonate long after the final page.
Wanda Coleman's work is being re-introduced to a fresh audience, highlighting its relevance and impact. This revival offers readers a chance to explore her unique voice and literary contributions, showcasing themes that resonate with contemporary issues. The timing emphasizes the importance of her work in today's literary landscape, inviting both new and seasoned readers to engage with her powerful narratives.
Nobody wrote about police hassle like she did. Nobody wrote about making ends meet, about the history of the slave trade or the comedy of the daily grind, with the same breathtaking originality and brio; and few writers, before or since, have had the courage to write with such honesty about their everyday experience of life - and love - in an unjust world. This is the first ever UK publication of the poetry of Wanda Coleman: a beat-up, broke and Black woman who wrote with defiance, humour and clarity about her life on the margins, and who went overlooked by the establishment for decades - even as she was known colloquially as 'the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles'. Wicked Enchantment gathers 130 of Coleman's poems in a selection by Terrance Hayes. Funny, angry, endlessly alive and written with an immediacy and frankness that captivate, here is the essential work of a poet of fierce resistance and self-belief against the odds
Sixteen performance artists discuss human sexuality, racism, sexism, and the ways in which art can be used to break down taboos and dogma.
"The first complete collection of Wanda Coleman's original and inventive sonnets. Long regarded as among her finest work, these one hundred poems give voice to loving passions, social outrage, and hard-earned wisdom. "Fantastically entertaining and deeply engaging...potent distillations of creative rage, social critique, and subversive wit."-Washington Post "Terrifying and fearlessly inventive."-New York Times Wanda Coleman was a beat-up, broke Black woman who wrote with anger, humor, and ruthless intelligence: "to know, i must survive myself," she wrote in "American Sonnet 7." A poet of the people, she created the experimental "American Sonnet" form and published them between 1986 and 2001. The form inspired countless others, from Terrance Hayes to Billy Collins. Drawn from life's particulars, Coleman's art is timeless and universal. In "American Sonnet 61" she writes: reaching down into my griot bag of womanish wisdom and wily social commentary, i come up with bricks with which to either reconstruct the past or deconstruct a head.... from the infinite alphabet of afroblues intertwinings, i cull apocalyptic visions (the details and lovers entirely real) and articulate my voyage beyond that point where self disappears These one hundred sonnets-borne from influences as diverse as Huey P. Newton and Herman Melville, Amiri Baraka and Robert Duncan-tell Coleman's own tale, as well as the story of Black and white America. From "American Sonnet 2": towards the cruel attentions of violent opiates as towards the fatal fickleness of artistic rain towards the locusts of social impotence itself i see myself thrown heart first into this ruin not for any crime but being This is a collection for anyone who values the power of words to name what is real and what is possible in a unique, questioning, and questing mind"-- Provided by publisher
Wer waren Emmett Till und Nat Turner? Wer waren die Neununddreißig, die die Überfahrt nicht überlebten, und was geschah am 11. März 1990? Wanda Coleman schreibt über historische Ereignisse und prägende Alltagserfahrungen, sie verfasst Briefe an eine große Schwester, Essays über die Sprache, Gedichte an einen totgeborenen Sohn. Sie wird zur Kulturterroristin, Märchenerzählerin, Comicskripterin und komponiert einen umfassenden Zyklus von Amerikanischen Sonetten. Gedichte über Sex und Geburt, über ihren Körper und Träume, Situationen im Krankenhaus oder im Gefängnis, über die Sorge, die Miete nicht bezahlen und die Kinder nicht versorgen zu können. In einer wütenden Sprache, mit teils beißendem Humor und teils überraschender Zärtlichkeit, überführt die profilierte Lyrikerin aus Los Angeles die Diskriminierung von Schwarzen in einem rassistischen Amerika in system- und herrschaftskritische Poesie. Terrance Hayes hat für diesen Band über 120 Gedichte voll Wut, Witz und Weisheit aus acht Lyrikbänden zusammengestellt, die Wanda Coleman zwischen den späten 1970ern und frühen 2000ern verfasst hat.
