Product Description
Poets who can write prose that equals their poetry are rare. With this collection of thirteen new short stories, Wanda Coleman, Los Angeles's unofficial poet laureate, proves an exception to the rule yet again. Jazz and Twelve O'Clock Tales owes its title to the lyrics of 'Lush Life' by Billy Strayhorn, Duke Ellington's right-hand man. Like the heartbroken lover of Strayhorn's song, the characters in these stories lead lonely lives full of longing, of potential stifled by racism, poverty, and absurd accidents of fate. And yet, even though they are trapped by the present moment, their inner lives are lush, a mirror of the city of angels in which they live, a metropolis, 'always simmering,' as Coleman writes in the final story, 'ever waiting to be borne on that balmy promised crescendo.'

Coleman applies a poet's economy of words to her fiction, setting a scene with lightning-quick strokes, letting a detail, a dialogue, or the brisk vernacular speak for itself. Or, alternatively, she will step in and take center stage, an omniscient voice seeing beyond the impending and inevitable tragedy, but powerless to change either narrative or outcome. Powerless, that is, only within the bounds of the story, for Coleman is an author devoted to change, personal and political, writing to affect the balance of power in America. 'Nothing will satisfy me,' she has written, 'short of an open society and social parity.' ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Life for the African American is complex, can be complicated, but is often comical and always colorful......
JAZZ AND TWELVE O'CLOCK TALES is a collection of short stories about African American life.Most of them are based around characters who perform jazz music.

The stories are interesting, but I could not relate to many of them, as they seem to be from an earlier time period in life--a time my parents could probably relate to well.Because the collection is of short stories, the author could not define many of the characters in such a way that the reader could relate to them, but the entire collection describes life from a unique perspective.

There are many dialogues in these stories that are very amusing, and give a glimpse into what life was like in a time period when we were still referred to as "colored" in many cases.But the overall meaning that I got out of this book is that Black people have always found ways to amuse and entertain themselves, even when life was a struggle.Also, there is a unique bond that Black people share through the music we enjoy.

I would like to read other works by Wanda Coleman because her stories in this book bring tales of life experiences that are unique and leave one with a good feeling, just to be a part of such a rich culture.

Reviewed by Rowena Winfrey
for The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

The Twilight Zone is Here and Now
For some reason, when I read this book, a thought kept running through my head about the attempts to revive the old Twilight Zone magic on television. These attempts never worked for me because the scripts were too easy, the storylines silly. Yet, reading this book gave me hope. Many of the stories are little brain twisters where the end surprises you. And all of them deal with issues in our culture that blend murkiness and clarity in such a way where we sure know something intense is going down, even if we can't put a finger on it.

In these stories, death is a matter-of-fact part of life. It may be horrible, but horror is upstaged by bewilderment. And sometimes, when you least expect, it isn't death knocking on your door, but an unexpected gift from heaven, be it a random act of kindness or being understood, seemingly for the first time in one's life. In these times where the questions of life change faster than they can be answered, touching base with these short stories reminds us that in the midst of confusion, there is still hope. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

beautiful and difficult like a woman that fascinates you but you wouldn't marry
Keep you dictionary close by, or a Wikipedia page up- hardly a poem went by that I didn't have to look something up or Google an arcane reference.But I think it's worth it.It's too vague a description perhaps but I love the rhythm of Coleman's poems, the way they flow down a page.Granted, you don't always know what you just "flowed" out of or into.She has this way, as do many poets, of saying something beautifully unintelligible; I frequently had the idea of a tapping her foot impatiently while a child completed a task, the task in this case being the deciphering of what was being said in the poem.But again- generally worth it.Poems like "south central los angeles deathtrip 1982", a series of vignettes about police brutality and corruption, and "amnesia fugue" are long, passionate,poems full of terrific imagery.One of my favorite lines in "amnesia fugue," which alternately addresses the speaker's father and an unnamed lover is

those tracks laid out from feet to horizon
spread your legs across them, cup your breasts
straddle the impact

Nice.Another fave of mine is "The Words are Still Burning" in which the speaker tells off a cousin who is well-educated but uppity, someone who imagines himself a social commentator while doing nothing to help society:

it doesn't take a degree in particle physics
to understand social injustice

thirty years of schmoozing over a chessboard,
empty rhetoric and chasing pu--y has not improved
your posture...
in your last incarnation you were pootbutt.in
this one, you are merely a poot (ll. 2-6, 9-10)

what you carry between your thighs is
not a sacred truth, but an integrity so minute
it can't even be detected with a magnifying glass (ll. 11-13)

how dare you complain that "little has changed"-
because in your cowardice you have not changed it... (ll. 29-30)

Not a bad read.There are many many diamonds in this rough if you'll dig.I'm betting the book is actually more of a gem than I have the patience to expound upon; my copy is all marked up with stars for emphasis, underlines, and copious footnotes from Wiki & Websters.

"anything worth having is worth working on and waiting for" -Betty Wright, "no pain, no gain" (or your momma, probably)

Kakalak 2006: An Anthology of Carolina Poets

Addendum.
Ms. Coleman's powerful collection MERCUROCHROME has just been nominated for the National Book Award in poetry. Quite an honor. Her last collection of poetry, BATHWATER WINE (Black Sparrow, 1998) won the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and her memoir LOVE-INS WITH NIETZSCHE (Wake Up Heavy, 2000) was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. It seems the literary world is standing up and taking note of one of our greatest modern poets.

One of America's Best Writers!!
Wanda Coleman has been publishing with Black Sparrow Press for nearly 25 years, which is amazing since she's only 55, and looks much younger than that. Even more amazing than the devotion she and BSP share, is the strength and vitality encompassed in each new volume they produce together. MERCUROCHROME, her latest, may be in fact her best. It is not too long, as the review above would suggest (her last collection of poems is nearly three years old now so there's plenty to print), nor is the power diluted. On the contrary, Coleman's voice is as strong as ever. And as diverse. I don't know if I've ever read a collection of sonnets or transliterations of mainly dead-white guys, that was so compelling. This book is as red-hot as the title suggests. Huzzah Wanda Coleman! P.S. I also wanted to praise the wonderful cover design by Barbara Martin on this, and so many other Black Sparrow books. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

powerful poetry
Wanda Coleman speaks clearly and powerfully in this book of poems.You won't find many "typical" love poems here -- the subject matter is sometimes brutal but always honest.My favorite poem in this collection is her account of the night that the fast food taco restaurant, where shewas working, got held up.I won't spoil the poem for you because theunexpected outcome is part of the force of this poem.I'd highly recommendthat you read it for yourself! ... Read more

Product Description
In this collection of articles, essays, interviews and columns, Wanda Coleman, Los Angeles' noted satirist, poet, and journalist, recounts three decades of the growth of her city and herself. Gleaned from the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, The Free Press and other publications, Coleman says that these pieces offer "a tour through the restless emotional topography of Los Angeles as glimpsed through the scattered fragments of my living memory."

We find the author--who is African-American, laboring as waitress, bartender, editor of a sleazy men's magazine--caught up in militant revolutionary politics and witnessing even more violent social upheaval in the form of the Watts and Rodney King riots.

While Coleman's life has been one of unique accomplishment, Publisher's Weekly notes, "Her extraordinary eye for detail and personal perspective universalizes her experience and makes her observations both trenchant and reliable." In short, this book is a must-read for any student of the American condition.Amazon.com Review
I first "met" Coleman when she was featured on a PBSspecial. She read some of her poems, and I was floored by theirpower. In this prose collection, I got to know her even better,through her essays and her interviews of artists Nikki Giovanni andBob Marley. Her essays are crystalline insights on a world gonecareless and L.A. in crisis. Within these short reflections are folksyou know and others you'll want to meet.Coleman speaks of the factsand foibles of being human, of difference and of just getting throughthe day. She talks the talk! ... Read more

Product Description
Coleman is one of the decade's most moral poets, showing us in feverishly focused first- and third-person dramatic monologues the grim life of L.A.'s streets. It's impossible to paraphrase her colloquial, dynamic style: "where I live / the little gangsters diddy-bop through and pick up / young bitches and flirt with old ones, looking to / snatch somebody's purse or find their way into somebody's / snatch 'cause mama don't want them at home and papa / is a figment and them farms them farms them farms / they call schools, and mudflapped bushy-headed entities / swoop the avenue seeking death / it's the only thrill left / where I live." Understanding does not mean, to Coleman, mild forgiveness, it means hot rage against those of any color who prey on others in pain. Contextualizing murder, rape, poverty, addiction showing us their human faces gives Coleman a 'shattered heart,' makes her feel 'thrown heart first into this ruin,' but the experience transforms the reader.Pat Monaghan, Booklist ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

This poetry don't play
This book is actually two: 1979's "Mad Dog Black Lady" and the 1990 "African Sleeping Sickness".Both are incredibly powerful collections of poetry (with some stories), and the sheer volume of work contained here (328 pgs, with almost a poem for every 2 on average) is almost enough to make you OD on poetry.The work is strong stuff, with stories of love, sex and danger throughout, and Coleman's voice is so hardcore compelling you don't know if you should read the bok or run from it.

Captures the biting energy of her short stories in poetic form.Wow. ... Read more

Product Description
Fiction. Wanda Coleman's powerful new novel chronicles the friendship between two women -- one from the black ghetto of Los Angeles, one from its white middle-class suburbs. Both are aspiring writers, both scramble to pay their bills by pickup jobs like waitressing and editing pulp magazines. For two decades they share each others' troubles and triumphs in and out of work and love. Coleman focuses primarily on the white protagonist's point of view; as the story unfolds and the characters' roots are unearthed, however, we learn that there's no such thing as "pure" white -- only a mix of bloods concealed over time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An emotional tour de force
A grabber that never lets go--I've read this powerful and moving novel a couple of times, and can't understand why everyone wasn't talking about it when it came out four years ago, and why they aren't still talking about it now. As a reality check, it transcends all PC and race issues. Reading it is a demanding but rewarding experience. Tamala, the unforgettable heroine, leaps off the page and into your heart. It certainly doesn't have a happy ending, but it is still an exhilarating one. I sat around for hours after reading it, absorbing the impact. Anyone who loves Coleman's short stories and poems will enjoy this action-jammed urban adventure. It's a must. ... Read more

Product Description
In this, her second collection of nonfiction prose, Wanda Coleman continues the project she began in Native in a Strange Land (1996), a project she once described as "a tour through the restless emotional topography of Los Angeles as glimpsed through scattered fragments of my living memory." It is a sometimes antic tour, with unforgettable commentary - Coleman's "intermittent outcries, moans, shouts, and jubilations along the route."

The Riot Inside Me once again finds the author at the bloody crossroads where art and politics, the personal and the political, and L.A. and the larger world meet and trade blows before resuming their separate paths. The 26 pieces gathered here a "hopscotch" of essays, memoirs, interviews, and reports are divided into four sections. One collects autobiographical pieces, including a haunting memoir of her first husband, a moth drawn to the flames of the more extreme forms of '60s radicalism. Another section is reserved for polemics, mainly issues of Black & White; a third collects Coleman's now famous "bad" review of Maya Angelou's "Song Flung Up to Heaven" "the most controversial piece I've yet written" and a caustically funny report on its fallout. The book concludes with a group of essays on race, class, and poetry: pieces that one critic called "sardonic when it comes to politics and groups [but] tender and hopeful when it comes to individuals." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Riot Inside Me
THE RIOT INSIDE ME: More Trials and Tremors is everything the 60s, 70s and 80s were--turbulent waves of social, political and emotional upheaval that segue into placid pools of self-acceptance, artistic talent and bittersweet reflection.With raw candor and compelling prose, Wanda Coleman vividly recreates her journey to the woman she is now--an awesome whirlwind of extraordinary literary stature.

Coleman's personal history from the 1950's to 2005, is revealed through essays, interviews, journals and letters--creating an autobiography that is not only a testament to the enduring perseverance of one black woman, but of her willingness to share the humor, as well as the tears, which litter the highways and side streets of her incredible life.

In an age when the memoir has taken a beating, Coleman's THE RIOT INSIDE ME emerges as an example of not only how beautiful, but how powerful a memoir can be when executed in the essence of the art.

Reviewed by Cxandra
for The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
... Read more

Product Description
A classic of World War II, here in its first American edition. War in Val d'Orcia is Iris Origo's elegantly simple chronicle of daily life at La Foce, a manor in a Tuscan no-man's land bracketed by foreign invasion and civil war.

With the immediacy only a diary can have, the book tells how the Marchesa Origo, an Anglo-American married to an Italian landowner, kept La Foce and its farms functioning while war threatened to overrun it and its people. She and her husband managed to protect their peasants, succor refugee children from Genoa and Turrin, hide escaped Allied prisoners of war-and somehow stand up to the Germans, who in dread due course occupied La Foce in 1944 and forced the Marchesa to retreat under a hot June sun.

Fleeing eight impossible miles on foot, along a mined road under shell fire, with sixty children in tow, she sheltered her flock in the dubious safety of a nearby village. A few days later, official Fascism disappeared, and La Foce was ransacked by the retreating Wehrmacht. Here, as the restoration of La Foce begins, her book ends.

Beyond praise and above mere documentary value, War in Val d'Orcia belongs to the literature of humanity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

No One Hit Wonder Here
This isn't plain boiled brocoli that your mama says you must eat before you leave the dinner table. Its not an academician publishing to put a footnote on his/her resume of esteemed works. You'll want to pretty much read the whole thing just as you would if it were Raymond Carver, Isaac Babel, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright ect.

Urban horror from a virtuoso prose stylist
Wanda Coleman's "A War of Eyes and Other Stories" plunges the reader into some really sordid and/or tragic tales from urban African-American life. There is a lot of sex, profanity, and violence (with an emphasis on black-on-black violence). She also deals with such topics as gambling, illegal drugs, racial tension, and sexual dysfunction. The stories range from short 1- or 2-page character studies to the longest story, which is about 20 pages long. Throughout the book Coleman masterfully captures the rhythms of black vernacular English.

Some of the most vivid selections in the book are as follows: "Ladies," about an encounter between two black women, a professional counselor and a woman mired in poverty; "The Scream," a subtly horrific tale; "The Friday Night Shift at the Taco House Blues (Wah-Wah)," which is basically a slice from the life of an urban fast-food restaurant; and "Word Monkey," a richly ironic story about a black writer of the pimp-and-junky genre. But the most stunning story is the longest one, "Big Dreams," an intense study of a woman pursuing a dream.

With her raw, unapologetic style and subject matter, Coleman reminds me somewhat of Charles Bukowski, but her work is very much rooted in African-American female experience. But another author I would compare her to is Poe: many of Coleman's stories are truly horror stories. But her horror is not supernatural; rather, it is firmly rooted in urban reality, with its violence and socioeconomic pressure. Coleman is a writer from the edge whose work has real power.

Poignant and dangerous for the meek of mind
When someone's work is usually referred to as visceral, the person doing the name-calling is usually referring to something ravagingly daring and unapologetic in the wor or the author's voice.In no other case is this more clear than in the work of Coleman.She strangles a common story's possible endings and finds the one most compelling one for her voice until it screams, and does so in fewer pages than most lauded authors.Her poems do this all the time, but her stories are gut-punches of the highest, most unforgiving literary tradition.The most astounding thing about her abilities is that she does so while not making the work trashy or for mere effect.Not for the meek of mind.

Wanda Coleman rules
This book came out a while ago.I read it and I thought, here's a writer as pure as James Purdy, as hip and relevant as Mary Gaitskill or Gary Indiana.Why haven't I heard of her?I thought she just did poetry.Many authors write books of short stories that are great, yet never have I read an author that has covered as much ground as Coleman in War of Eyes.I read it and I thought, how did she not lose her mind?What I love the most about her short stories is how they have many beats. So many things happen in one story you wonder how she gets from A to Z so flawlessly and so beautifully without any self consciousness.I hesitate to compare her to other black writers like Toni Morrison and Jamaica Kinkaid because she trancends their P.C. conceits so ferociously that she should only be compared to the greatest writers of all time, regardless of race. Wanda Coleman is FIERCE. ... Read more

Product Description
Poet Wanda Coleman provides a how-to manual, revealing some immediate ways not only to "fix a bad man hex" or "do dirty better," but to keep one's dream-light burning amid the aching rush of dark and anxious times.

These poems and stories reflect the daily struggles of a poet-performer whose fight to survive is "plagued by the fear of not making it" ("Trying To Get In").
Poverty is an ever-present set of "claws" to grapple with, and in Coleman's realistically-apprehended present there's no way to beat the Man at his own game:

it's high noon
the sheriff is an IBM executive / it shoots 120 words per secretary
i reach for the white-out
it's too fast for me
i'm blown to blazes ("Job Hunter").
Passion and desire yield insights, also betrayals:
yes i do think of you
when i'm with him
even laugh out loud
remembering our summer's fun
how it might be fun again
still, something in his eyes
i do not see in yours ("Four Men"). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Don't believe the hype, but do read the book
I respect Robert P. Beveridge's review, but I don't see the distinctionhe's making between Coleman's "scalpel" poems and her"automatic writing" poems. The "walking" quote hesingled out for criticism comes from one of the more-effective pieces, inmy opinion. This may come down to a matter of taste. I wonder if WandaColeman herself would agree that poetry is supposed to elevate thelanguage. She doesn't seem to be trying to "elevate" anything.She seems to be groping at the limits of language to express the kind ofpain that usually shocks people mute.

Prepare to be moved
If you have never read any of Coleman's poetry before, dive on in. She isa gifted writer with one foot in the black oral tradition and the otherfirmly rooted in the American experience.A previous review of this bookcomplained about Coleman's inability to spell certain words, such as comeand enough, correctly. Obviously, this reviewer has his head buried in theIvory Tower. It seems fairly remedial to have to point out that Colemanpurposely misspells these and other words: she is trying to make a poeticpoint! I suggest reading the poem "Essay on Language" (a versionof which also appears in her "Hand Dance" collection) for afurther understanding of why she chooses to write in a style that reflectsher life and her experience. Standard English is nothing but a dialect, youknow.

If you are looking for gripping, emotional, passionate poetry thattells a woman's side of the story, pick up Heavy Daughter Blues. You won'tbe disappointed.

Don't believe the hype.
Let's not start with the spelling errors that are consistent enough that they can't be editorial mistakes. Let's not start with the subject matter, which wavers over the line of political polemic once too often. Let's notstart with the scareligious procedure of putting lines above the poem thatexplain it. Instead, let's start with the definition of poetry itself andthe basic idea, always there even if not stated, that one of the primaryfunctions of poetry is to elevate the language in some way, thatindefinable something that makes you realize a poem is a poem and not justrandom thoughts brokwn up into lines.

There are times, more times thancan be coincidence, that Wanda Coleman's work strays over that line oflanguage elevation. The woman obviously has a command of the language thatshe is capable of unfolding and wielding with scalpel-like precision whenshe wants to:

when god passed out the baby fat she was first in lineshe wasn't pretty [enough] to be a j.a.p. lost her virginity in the backseat of a cadillac her shrink diagnosed her as manic repressive

anorexia as goddess words so think you're hungry again an hour after youeat them

but unfortunately such moments are all too rare in thiseighteen-year two-hundred-twenty page compendium of work. Most of it soundsmore like it came from the freely-flowing pen of those too drunk, or tootired, to do anything but automatic writing. While there are some poets whoworked at their best that way-- Desnos, Bukowski, and a handful of otherscome to mind-- the majority who try to do it fail miserably.

she walkswalking walked all through life walks restless like her people waiting tosee what happens knowing it will never happen until after she's dead

...and the walking shall continue until we can walk no more.

Now, I'mall too willing to kick a lot of swine out of the way to find a few pearls,but there are some things that will make it an annoying process, like aninability to spell "enough" and "come" correctly fortwo hundred twenty pages-- especially when your command and grasp of theEnglish language is at least at the college level. By the time I got to theend of it, I was skimming pretty hard. ... Read more

Product Description
Winner of the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Huzzah!!
Wanda Coleman is quickly becoming my favorite American poet. This collection, which I'm reading at the same time with her latest book MERCUROCRHOME, only reinforces my stance. As a young white male I shied away from Coleman's writing for quite some time, thinking, however ignorant this may seem, that I'd find nothing in common with her, nothing to relate to. When you're wrong you're wrong, and when I finally did dive into her work (her first book MAD DOG, BLACK LADY) I felt like I did when I first read Bukowski: I had found something special. Some have deemed Coleman as the "Black, female Bukowski," but of course this is too simple a comparison. They both hailed from the underbelly of LA, and both can't seem to get the city out of their blood. Coleman's poetry does share something with Bukowski's early lyricism, but beyond that there is no real comparison (the only other thing I can think of is that Black Sparrow has published nearly all of their books). Coleman's work is more studied and stylized, more diverse in technique and scope. I have had the great pleasure and honor now of actually publishing some of Coleman's work, and her power continues to blow me away. I look forward to every new piece she puts out there.

An All American Poetry Book!
Bathwater Wine by Wanda Coleman is a book of poetry that everyone can relate to on one level or another.The poetry in this book is easy to read, realistic, and down to earth.Coleman writes about life events thatmany people can relate to.She has poured her heart and soul on the pagesand the reader can easily see stages of her life in the poems.The bookshowcases all forms of poetry including sonnets and songs.Among the poemsare "Jazz Whine," which is a dedication to Jazz music, but also alook at life lessons, "Levels of Meaning," which looks at what itmeans to be a woman and the many images it partakes, and "Firesong1964," which is a dedication to the monk in Viet Nam who showed theworld what he believed in.This book is a must for anyone who isdiscovering modern poetry for the first time.It is deep, but easy.It isColeman, but it is also you and me.It is an All American book asportrayed by both the poems inside and the patriotic red, white, and bluecover.It is an excellent collection of poems from one of today's mostprofound poets. ... Read more

Product Description
"A poet whose angry and extravagant music, so far beyond baroque, has been making itself heard across the divide between West Coast and East, establishment and margins, slams and seminars, across the too-American rift among races and genders (there are more than two of each) for two decades."-From the jury's citation for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize

Ostinato Vamps continues and enlarges the traits that have been Wanda Coleman's hallmark for more than three decades: a fierce adherence to the truth and a language so musical one can almost hear the blues line beneath her stanzas.

Linguistically daring, lyrically breathtaking, stylistically bold, these poems both explore familiar territory and shatter stereotypes. Racing between an earthy eroticism and fatalistic despair, filled with humor and tragedy, these poems are alive. They breathe. They dance. Life is difficult, often unfair, but it belongs to the living, as Coleman reminds us in no uncertain terms. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Fascinating and Complex Urban Poet
In this book, I'm talking back the rhythms that were stolen from my people. Our society has suppressed the spirit of African Americans, yet when I look around me and in the media, everybody is walking, talking and singing like black people. ~Wanda Coleman

Wanda Coleman's poems are wildly complex in form and I will admit to only understanding about a third of the hidden meanings. As I read her poems I am walking down dark streets when suddenly I turn a page and I am suddenly at home with a series of words. Then, I am thrown into a word maze again where words like odalisque, pandemic and narcoleptic pull my eyes hungrily across the pages of hurricane thoughts.

Wanda is known as an Urban Poet who has a love for unvarnished truth. She comments on everything from politics to hot love. Her poems dance with their own rhythm and are especially beautiful when she lets her goddess out to play. She is known for being one of the nation's best poet-performers.

While the complexity is inspiring and Wanda's use of words, stunning...I was so happy to find my way to the humor in "The History of My Body." Deep emotions dance between her words and sometimes she blatantly expresses inner torments like when she writes: "I have wrung my heart/in secret silence." At times her words seem to roll in hot lust or spring from the page in a mind jolting punch.

Wanda's poems inspire me to write and write. I write my own poems after reading her poems and I am amazed at how such complexity inspires my own awakening to myself. I understand her musings on some primal level where poets sometimes live but at times her language flies above me and I can't grasp at the meaning no matter how much I try. Sometimes I am so pleased to understand an entire poem and then I can wander through pages before enlightenment strikes again.

By the time I arrived at "Soul Traveler" I was writing my own poems. That is how much this book inspired me.

The poems are challenging and interesting and the vocabulary and visual images are just stunning:

...in rainbow-colored moss. There she thrived in volcanic
radiance & iridescent splendor yet she pined for
another world made steel by her false imaginings & in
the pitch of her moonless golden-apple grove she danced
her dissatisfactions amongst ghosts...

To write this way! What a dream.

~The Rebecca Review

The beat of a different drummer
[ostinato]: a musical figure repeated persistently at the same pitch throughout a composition. -- Webster

Wanda Coleman has been dubbed the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles and with OSTINATO VAMPS she continues the traits that have been her hallmark for more than three decades. Her style is lyrically breathtaking as she repeatedly weaves voices and snippets of blues lyrics into poetic expressions that focus on the human struggle. Her words do both, explore familiar territory and shatter stereotypes, but her fidelity to the truth is buffered by the syncopated way she delivers. The poetry and prose possess a soaring openness and a biting wit, where socially imposed fate begins to burn in the reader's mind at the indifference of humankind. The empty sadness in the title 'Olio Intaglio', where a mother is left to suffer alone over the loss of her son, touches on how family and friends can be the cruelest of them all.

One caption refers to her as the poet with a warrior voice because of her inclination to peel away polite veneer and verbally dissect the heart of issues. She artfully reminds us that life is unfair, but it still belongs to the living. If you have a penchant for poetry that is rhythmic but not rhyming, that reaches to the core of a psycho-social America, I recommend OSTINATO VAMPS. It invites the mind to venture beyond its comfort zone.

Reviewed by aNN
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

The Vision and the Music
OSTINATO VAMPS is a gloriously ambitious book. Taken together, its poems form a visionary history of black, white, brown, and beige. Similar to the speaker in Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," the "I" in these poems is a conduit for voices from the ancient past, the 19th century, the noir 40s of big band swing, the 50s of hipster bebop, and contemporary America. This is art as history redeemed: "aesthetics is the science of vulnerability/ bruises transformed, wounds immortalized..." Coleman is a virtuoso of many styles, laying down Thelonious Monk or Miles Davis, Robert Johnson or Billie Holiday, and sometimes rap or gospel. In a gorgeous poem called "Plum Hunger," she manages to merge W. C. Williams and Duke Ellington. There are people who still think Renaissance music should cue the rhythm of our poems. Coleman demonstrates that true American prosody is based on our native music. This is an important book. Do not miss it. ... Read more

Product Description
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Wanda Coleman (birth name, Wanda Evans) (born November 13, 1946) is an American poet. She is known as "the L.A. Blueswoman," and "the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles."Coleman was born Wanda Evans, and grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles during the 1960s. She has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, The NEA, and the California Arts Council (in fiction and in poetry). She was the first C.O.L.A. literary fellow (Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, 2003). Her many honors include an Emmy in Daytime Drama writing, The 1999 Lenore Marshall Prize (for "Bathwater Wine"), and a nomination for the 2001 National Book Awards (for "Mercurochrome"). She was a finalist for California poet laureate (2005). ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from African American Review, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2005. The length of the article is 1033 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Wanda Coleman. Ostinato Vamps.(Book Review)
Author: Sara Kosiba
Publication: African American Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 39Issue: 1-2Page: 247(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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Who's Who among African Americans provides biographical and careerdetails on notable African American individuals, including leaders from sports, the arts, business, religion and more. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Wanda Coleman, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1825 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author