The Riot Inside Me: More Trials and Tremors

by Wanda Coleman

“Satire and journalism are alive and well in L.A., at least when Wanda Coleman is doing the biting and the reporting.”― Publishers Weekly

The Riot Inside Me once again finds the author at the crossroads where art and politics, the personal and the political, and L.A. and the larger world meet. The 26 pieces gathered here―a “hopscotch” of essays, memoirs, interviews, and reports―include a haunting memoir of her first husband, a moth drawn to the flames of the more extreme forms of ’60s radicalism, and 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.

Of this nonfiction collection, the Los Angeles Times said: “Coleman is best known for her ‘warrior voice.’ But her voice too can weep elegiac, summoning memories of childhood’s neighborhoods – her South L.A.’s wild-frond palms, the smog-smear of pre-ecology consciousness. Her voice hits notes as desperate as Billie Holiday’s tours of sorrow’s more desolate stretches. But it can also land a wily punch line as solid as that of a stand-up comic.”

Genres: Poetry

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 25, 2005

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]

This woman writes prolifically! I love to read these stories of her life experiences, she effuses her life on the page with no holding back. She has stood in the middle of controversy.