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Hand Dance
Her father’s fatal illness. The inner life of an urban charity hospital. “Unfinished Ghost Stories.” “American Sonnets.” “Dreams.” This is vintage Wanda Coleman, the poet of the people.
Coleman wrote as a witness. She captured her world and its truths, of life with the constants of race, fear, poverty, gender, inequality, oppression. Through it all, there is passionate love and sexuality, humor and drama ― her work is full of startling confession and breathtaking power.
The Nation said of Hand Dance : “Coleman’s poems are an act of liberation, meant to be experienced as something almost physical, like a punch or a whipping . . . she wants her language to express anger, to incite anger, and to shake all those who read it out of their complacency.”
A college dropout living in Black Los Angeles, Coleman was disregarded by the establishment during her lifetime. It’s time for her work to be discovered by readers everywhere.
Poet Terrance Hayes wrote, “Wanda Coleman was a great poet, a real in-the-flesh, flesh-eating poet who also happened to be a real black woman. Amid a life of single motherhood, multiple marriages, and multiple jobs that included waitress, medical file clerk, and screenwriter, she made poems. She denounced boredom, cowardice, the status quo. Few poets of any stripe write with as much forthrightness about poverty, about literary ambition, about depression, about our violent, fragile passions.”
Coleman wrote as a witness. She captured her world and its truths, of life with the constants of race, fear, poverty, gender, inequality, oppression. Through it all, there is passionate love and sexuality, humor and drama ― her work is full of startling confession and breathtaking power.
The Nation said of Hand Dance : “Coleman’s poems are an act of liberation, meant to be experienced as something almost physical, like a punch or a whipping . . . she wants her language to express anger, to incite anger, and to shake all those who read it out of their complacency.”
A college dropout living in Black Los Angeles, Coleman was disregarded by the establishment during her lifetime. It’s time for her work to be discovered by readers everywhere.
Poet Terrance Hayes wrote, “Wanda Coleman was a great poet, a real in-the-flesh, flesh-eating poet who also happened to be a real black woman. Amid a life of single motherhood, multiple marriages, and multiple jobs that included waitress, medical file clerk, and screenwriter, she made poems. She denounced boredom, cowardice, the status quo. Few poets of any stripe write with as much forthrightness about poverty, about literary ambition, about depression, about our violent, fragile passions.”
- GenresPoetry
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
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About the author
Wanda Coleman
53 books82 followersColeman 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).
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 18, 2026
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.
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.
Displaying 1 of 1 review