Guest of the ilb 2005
Wanda Coleman was born in Watts in 1946. This
Southern Californian community became known in 1965 for a six-day riot,
triggered by an assault by white policemen on Marcus Frye, a black man.
The »Watts Riots« prompted Coleman to turn to writing as her preferred
means of artistic expression, and it politicised her. She joined the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Youth
Council and temporarily became a member of a paramilitary troupe. As a
single mother she made a living with help from welfare and a string of
occasional jobs, among them as medical secretary, actress, and
screenplay writer. In 1976 she was the first Afro-American to receive
an Emmy for a script for daytime television. Coleman worked as a
columnist for the »Los Angeles Times« and wrote for »LA Weekly«, »The
Washington Post« and »The Nation«. Her short stories appeared in
various publications, among them »American Voice«, »Callaloo« and
»Fiction International«. Coleman is known above all for her authentic,
passionate poetry, which is often accompanied by music at her
influential readings and performances. In doing so she gives a voice to
those human beings whose lives expose the American dream of the land of
infinite possibilities as a lie. Her first collection of poems, »Mad
Dog, Black Lady«, appeared in 1979, followed by the well-known volume
of poetry: »Imagoes« (1981). Coleman herself describes her language as
»composed of styles, sometimes waxing traditional, harking to the
neoformalists; but most of my poems are written in a sometimes
frenetic, sometimes lyrical free verse, dotted with literary, musical
and cinematic allusions, accented with mutterings of German, Latin,
Spanish, and Yiddish, and neologisms, and rife with various cants and
jargons«. Following the death of her son she struck an elegiac and
sardonic note in »Bathwater Wine« (1998). This poetry collection was
awarded the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, while her next book,
»Merchurochrome« (2001), was nominated for the National Book Award.
Aspects of life and survival, violence, job search, contempt and
assimilation also surface as themes in her essays, which can be as
politically impetuous as sensitive, such as when she depicts more
personal spheres. Her most recent published work is »The Riot Inside
Me« (2005), which combines interviews, essays, critiques and memoirs.
Coleman’s performances are available as CDs and videos. Her work has
been included in several anthologies, among them »Best American Poetry«
(1988, 1996) and »The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry«.
She has received grants from the California Arts Council, the John P.
Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Coleman
is a member of various American writers’ associations such as the
Academy of American Poets. She teaches Creative Writing, gives lectures
and readings at universities, prisons and rock concerts. The author
lives with her husband, the artist Austin Straus, in Los Angeles.
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