Wanda Coleman

Bio: 
Wanda Coleman was born in Watts and raised in South Central Los Angeles and has lived California from San Francisco to the Mexican border. The author of 18 books of poetry and prose, she is featured in Writing Los Angeles (2002), and Black California (2010). She has been an Emmy-winning scriptwriter and a former columnist for Los Angeles Times Magazine. Her honors include Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and a 2004 C.O.L.A. Fellowship in literature from the Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles. Her most recent books include Ostinato Vamps; The Riot Inside Me: Trials & Tremors; Jazz & Twelve O'Clock Tales and a new collection of poems, The World Falls Away.

Lewis MacAdams is a Texas native and the author of more than a dozen books of poetry including, the most recent, Dear Oxygen. In 1970 he moved to Bolinas, a small town in West Marin County, California, where he became one of the few American poets ever to be elected to public office. In 1985, he founded Friends of the Los Angeles River, a 40-year art work to bring the Los Angeles River back to life. He remains the organization's president. His book Birth of the Cool, a history of the idea of cool, was chosen one of the best non-fiction books of the year for 2001 by the Los Angeles Times.

Lynell George is an L.A.-based journalist and essayist. A longtime staff writer for both the Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly, she covers books, music, visual art, social issues and identity politics. Her work has also appeared in Vibe, Essence, The Smithsonian, Black Clock and Boom: A Journal of California. George is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles where she teaches journalism.

Photo: LAPL Photo collection

Episode 1: American Sonnet 15

Thursday, April 1, 2021
00:03:25
Poems on Air
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Episode Summary

Los Angeles Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson reads Wanda Coleman’s “American Sonnet 15”.

Participant(s) Bio

Wanda Coleman's published works, including her collections of poetry, represent a quarter of a century of writing in Los Angeles. On the West Coast she is known as a "powerhouse poet," acclaimed more for the strident voice of her spoken word performances than for her published works, and she has made a number of recordings. In her poetry, as well as in her short stories and essays, Coleman persistently creates a desolate landscape of a torn humanity ravaged by racial injustice, economic oppression, failed relationships, and physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. There is no prospect of repair, healing, or reconciliation. Although she is most often cited for the anger and rage in her poetry, her canon reveals her to be a regional poet sensitive to the racial inequalities and economic disparities of black Americans. Her writings convey her keen ear for the urban vernacular and show her penchant for a clear, direct, and raw poetic style, yet her work has received little critical attention.

Source: Gale In Context: Biography

A Tribute to Wanda Coleman

With Terrance Hayes and Douglas Kearney. Music by David Ornette Cherry
Co-presented With Red Hen Press and Poetry Society of America
Saturday, January 18, 2014
01:19:14
ALOUD
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Episode Summary

A Tribute to Wanda Coleman with Terrance Hayes and Douglas Kearney. Music by David Ornette Cherry and featuring Stephen Kessler, Ron Koertge, Laurel Ann Bogen, Charles Harper Webb, Michael Datcher, Suzanne Lummis, Sesshu Foster, Jack and Adelle Foley, Brendan Constantine, Cecilia Woloch, Robin Coste Lewis, Austin Straus.

Participant(s) Bio

During this program, we paid tribute to Los Angeles' unofficial poet laureate, Wanda Coleman, with an evening of readings and shared memories. Honoring what she did for poetry and who she was in Los Angeles: a shy larger-than-life figure who, for decades, reminded us how to be our own most authentic selves, who made us remember histories of poetry and oppression and music. We will miss her, and we will celebrate her. We will remember her. Musical accompaniment was provided by David Ornette Cherry.

Yet Do I Marvel: Black Iconic Poets of the 20th Century

Wanda Coleman, Major Jackson, and Brighde Mullins
Moderated by Alice Quinn, Executive Director, Poetry Society of America
Thursday, July 11, 2013
01:23:48
ALOUD
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Episode Summary

In this Los Angeles segment of the Poetry Society of America’s 2013 national series, three distinguished poets will celebrate the lives and poetry of major 20th century figures—James Weldon Johnson, Countee Cullen, and Gwendolyn Brooks-—discussing their influence, and reading poems of their own in tribute.

Participant(s) Bio

Wanda Coleman was born in Watts and raised in South Central Los Angeles and has lived in California from San Francisco to the Mexican border. The author of 18 books of poetry and prose, she is featured inWriting Los Angeles and Black California. Coleman is an Emmy-winning scriptwriter and former columnist for Los Angeles Times Magazine. Her honors include Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and a 2004 C.O.L.A. Fellowship in literature from the Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles. Her most recent books include Ostinato Vamps; The Riot Inside Me: Trials & Tremors; Jazz & Twelve O'Clock Tales and a new collection of poems, The World Falls Away.

Major Jackson is an American poet, professor and the author of three collections of poetry: Holding Company, Hoops, Leaving Saturn, which won the 2001 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and was a finalist for a National Book Critics Award Circle. He served as a creative arts fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. He currently serves as the Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review and is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at the University of Vermont and is a core faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Brighde Mullins is a poet and playwright, whose works include The Bourgeois Pig; Monkey in the Middle; Fire Eater; and many others. She received a Guggenheim Award in 2012 and has also won awards from United States Artists, the NEA, and the Whiting Foundation for her plays. She teaches in and runs the Master of Professional Writing (MPW), a multi-genre graduate creative writing program at the University of Southern California.

Alice Quinn is Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America and an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of the Arts. She was poetry editor at The New Yorker from 1987-2007 and at Alfred A. Knopf from 1976-1986. She is the editor of Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragmentsby Elizabeth Bishop. Her articles on and interviews with writers, poets, and artists have appeared in Artforum, the Canadian National Post, The Forward, Poetry Ireland, The New Yorker, and The New Yorker Online. She is currently editing the journals and notebooks of Elizabeth Bishop.

Concrete Rivers: The Emotional Topography of LA

In conversation with Lynell George
Thursday, April 12, 2012
01:16:23
ALOUD
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Episode Summary
Two celebrated poets read from their most recent work and discuss how Los Angeles has influenced their writing, how some influences overlap and others diverge. Born in Watts, Wanda Coleman witnessed Simon Rodia working on the Towers firsthand. Coleman's work is often concerned with the outsider, both in terms of race and poverty in California. Lewis MacAdams is a poet, journalist, filmmaker, and activist who has written on topics ranging from cultural history to the environment. Known as the Los Angeles River's most influential advocate, he co-founded the Friends of the LA River (FoLAR) and dubbed it \"a forty year art work.\"
Participant(s) Bio
Wanda Coleman was born in Watts and raised in South Central Los Angeles and has lived California from San Francisco to the Mexican border. The author of 18 books of poetry and prose, she is featured in Writing Los Angeles (2002), and Black California (2010). She has been an Emmy-winning scriptwriter and a former columnist for Los Angeles Times Magazine. Her honors include Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and a 2004 C.O.L.A. Fellowship in literature from the Department of Cultural Affairs, Los Angeles. Her most recent books include Ostinato Vamps; The Riot Inside Me: Trials & Tremors; Jazz & Twelve O'Clock Tales and a new collection of poems, The World Falls Away.

Lewis MacAdams is a Texas native and the author of more than a dozen books of poetry including, the most recent, Dear Oxygen. In 1970 he moved to Bolinas, a small town in West Marin County, California, where he became one of the few American poets ever to be elected to public office. In 1985, he founded Friends of the Los Angeles River, a 40-year art work to bring the Los Angeles River back to life. He remains the organization's president. His book Birth of the Cool, a history of the idea of cool, was chosen one of the best non-fiction books of the year for 2001 by the Los Angeles Times.

Lynell George is an L.A.-based journalist and essayist. A longtime staff writer for both the Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly, she covers books, music, visual art, social issues and identity politics. Her work has also appeared in Vibe, Essence, The Smithsonian, Black Clock and Boom: A Journal of California. George is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles where she teaches journalism.

Photo: LAPL Photo collection

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