Ostinato Vamps
Poems
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of Pittsburgh Press
Published:19th Oct '03
Should be back in stock very soon
Wanda Coleman is the winner of the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for "Bathwater Wine", a bronze-medal finalist for the National Book Award in 2001 for Mercurochrome and the recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships.
Past winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, this long-time author from Black Sparrow Press is known for her fierce adherence to the truth and a language so musical one can almost hear the blues line underneath her stanzas.Ostinato Vamps is Wanda Coleman's first book of poetry since the demise of her longtime publisher, Black Sparrow Press. It continues and enlarges the traits that have been her hallmark for more than three decades: a fierce adherence to the truth and a language so musical one can almost hear the blues line underneath her stanzas.
Linguistically daring, lyrically breathtaking, stylistically bold, these poems both explore familiar territory and shatter stereotypes. Life is difficult, often unfair, but it belongs to the living, as Coleman reminds us in no uncertain terms. Racing between an earthy eroticism and fatalistic despair, filled with humor and tragedy, these poems are alive. They breathe. They challenge us even as they reward us for seeking the truth.
A poet whose angry and extravagant music, so far beyond baroque, has been making itself heard across the divide between West Coast and East, establishment and margins, slams and seminars, across the too-American rift among races and genders (there are more than two of each) for two decades.... But her poems do not require an audible voice or physical presence: They perform themselves. - From the jury's citation for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; ""[Coleman] is best known for what has often been termed her 'warrior voice,' her inclination to impatiently peel away small talk's polite veneer, to scissor through to the heart of the matter.... [A] master of telling unvarnished truths - about self, about the world, about personal past and our collective future."" - Los Angeles Times; ""A sly observer, Coleman continues to shoplift language to address a gamut of psycho-social ills.... The inclusive and experimental quality of Coleman's voice characterizes a truly American aesthetic."" - Black Issues Book Review; ""[Mercurochrome is] probably one of the most innovative books of poetry since the end of World War II.... A stunning work of art."" - Isthmus
ISBN: 9780822958338
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
128 pages