Heart First Into This Ruin: The Complete American Sonnets

by Wanda Coleman, Mahogany L. Browne (Introduction)

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.

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

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published June 14, 2022

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

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally published in sections across various of her poetry collections, Heart First into This Ruin finally collects into one volume the complete 100 American Sonnets, Coleman’s contribution to the sonnet form and aesthetic expression of her experiences as a Black woman in America, un-degreed and unmarried—experiences simultaneously singular and familiar, unique and shared, compressed to 14 lines. The lines and stanza lengths vary from poem to poem, suggesting that Coleman tries to tailor each poem’s meter to its subject, the way it is talked about, described. And this she does very well, covering family, erotic love, work, chronic poverty, racism, and the damned knowledge that she is better than what she receives from American society.

Here’s Coleman in meditative form, “American Sonnet #76”:

there be the fog outside and the fog inside
settling over the gravesites and skin
climate fit for ghosts and amnesiacs, befogged,
intrusive skirtings thru filters, cracks
and secrete spots, mist forming at my lover’s
kiss in the pretty air, the kiss hovering and diving
before it strikes me. mist oceanflow from resistance to
peace time, mist taking root in the brown chair at the
pine desk, composing, there is internal fog and external
fog. a garden of spirits and drums, sprites
thrilling on the ooze, of firs, walking naked, cold and
hungry for smoke, the east, want borne on wickedness like
a shot, or kiss, before diving into blankets and history
to embrace the fog to give it form and flesh

An essential collection of American poetry from the late 20th century.

For more of my reviews, please see https://www.thebookbeat.com/backroom/...

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wanda Coleman expands my vocabulary as well as my thinking. Where else am I going to go to get the words "apocryphon," "schizophasia," and "aphotic," all in a single poem ("American Sonnet 21"), outside this wondrous posthumous collection "Heart First into This Ruin"? Throughout this book, I reveled in Coleman's play with the language; her effortless incorporation of neologisms like "raptivist" ("American Sonnet 57") and "agririches" ("American Sonnet 75"); her conjuring of imagery that never feels cerebral or dryly academic. To the contrary, Coleman's writing has a precision that suggests she's whittled her verses down to an unfancy essence. Partly that's the nature of the sonnet. (When you're penning verses that max out around 14 lines, you don't have space to wax yourself onto a second page.) Partly that's a technique that's useful when throwing a literary punch. (Coleman's less concerned with the jabs than the knockout.) Noting the numerous dedications herein (to fellow poets such as Robert Mezey, Robert Lowell, Amiri Baraka), I can't help but hope that the future is one full of poets constantly paying tribute to Wanda Coleman, too.

[Andy Oram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great to have these classic modernist poems together, powerful even if sometimes a polemical. Coleman can get very serious and even scary, but she plays a lot too, spinning out pop references and skat-like phrases that even sound like today's hip-hop. At her best, her social commentary is delivered with a uniquely sarcastic lyricism ("deader than economic boom news"). Real pain is also reflected in these poems, especially the death of a child.

I found myself, as I read through this book, writing poems of my own—not trying to imitate Coleman, but just inspired by her overflowing energy and love of language.

Coleman must have been great when reading these aloud. You can appreciate this book better by sampling recordings of her live readings, which you can find through a web search.

I do wish I knew when each poem was written.

[Julia Bucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

"American Sonnet 95

seized by wicked enchantment, i surrendered my song

as i fled for the stars, i saw an earthchild

in a distant hallway, crying out

to his mother, “please don’t go away

and leave us.” he was, i saw, my son. immediately,

i discontinued my flight

from here, i see the clocktower in a sweep of light,

framed by wild ivy. it pierces all nights to come

I haunt these chambers but they belong to cruel churchified insects.

among the books mine go unread, dust-covered.

i write about urban bleeders and breeders, but am

troubled because their tragedies echo mine.

at this moment I am sickened by the urge

to smash. my thighs present themselves

stillborn, misshapen wings within me"

[Keri Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wanda Coleman showed me the love of contemporary sonnets through her fantastic vocabulary, inventive wordplay, and experimentation on the form of the sonnet itself. I think to fully grasp the genius of this book I would have to read it at least one more time.

[juno · Rating 4 out of 5]

my heart assumes the flesh of a two-year-old / thumps like waves rising in my chest / leaps into wonder, drowns

the way coleman strings together not just words but their sounds is just genius and delightful and tirelessly compelling