Hand Dance

Author: Wanda Coleman

Publisher: Black Sparrow Press (1993)

Her father’s fatal illness. The inner life of an urban charity hospital. “Unfinished Ghost Stories.” “American Sonnets.” “Dreams.” This is vintage Wanda Coleman, the poet of the people.

Coleman wrote as a witness. She captured her world and its truths, of life with the constants of race, fear, poverty, gender, inequality, oppression. Through it all, there is passionate love and sexuality, humor and drama—her work is full of startling confession and breathtaking power.

A college dropout and single mom in Watts, Coleman was disregarded by the establishment during her lifetime. It’s time for her work to be discovered by readers everywhere.