Hand Dance

by Wanda Coleman

Hard, brilliant strokes shot through with street music in this sixth book by Los Angeles poet and short story writer Coleman. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Genres: Poetry

271 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Coleman was born Wanda Evans, and grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles during the 1960s. She 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 numerous honors included 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).

Reviews

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book long ago. A strong book of mostly poetry with some stories addressing race issues and relationships. Wanda's writing is engaging and relevant to our times, then and now. Her poem Notse of a Cultural Terrorist (2) I would advise everyone to read. One passage takes off on Langsgton Hughes:
What happens to a war deferred
does it implode? does repressed aggression
ravage the collective soul?

In another poem she has a chart at the end:
Approximate number of victims of the major Urban Concentration Camps
It lists major US cities with numbers.

If you've not read Wanda's writing, anytime is a good time to start. Sadly she is no longer with us, but we have her words, and her spirit.