Format: First trade paperback printing

Condition: Very good plus, very light edge and corner wear, light sun shadow on rear cover.

Product dimensions: n/a

Publishing Info: Black Sparrow Press, Santa Rosa, CA, 1987

Language: English

ISBN - 13: 9780876857014

 

Available via my network of independent booksellers at Biblio

 

These poems and stories reflect the daily struggles of a poet-performer whose fight to survive is "plagued by the fear of not making it" ("Trying To Get In"). Poverty is an ever-present set of "claws" to grapple with, and in Coleman's realistically-apprehended present there's no way to beat the Man at his own game: "it's high noon / the sheriff is an IBM executive / it shoots 120 words per secretary / i reach for the white-out / it's too fast for me / i'm blown to blazes" ("Job Hunter").

Passion and desire yield insights, also betrayals: "yes i do think of you / when i'm with him / even laugh out loud / remembering our summer's fun / how it might be fun again / still, something in his eyes / i do not see in yours" ("Four Men").

Poet Wanda Coleman provides a how-to manual, revealing some immediate ways not only to "fix a bad man hex" or "do dirty better," but to keep one's dream-light burning amid the aching rush of dark and anxious times.

 

About the Author:

n/a

 

Poetry Foundation profile of Wanda Coleman

 

More poetry on shop books

 

Available via my network of independent booksellers at Biblio