In an April 14 book review in the Los Angeles Times, Coleman concluded, "Unfortunately, the Maya Angelou of A Song Flung Up to Heaven seems small and inauthentic, without ideas, wisdom or vision. Something is being flung up to heaven all right, but it isn't a song." She accused Angelou of writing a book full of "empty phrases and sweeping generalities . . . dead metaphors ("sobbing embrace," "my heart fell in my chest") and clumsy similes ("like the sound of buffaloes running into each other at rutting times"). The book has gotten some other poor reviews, but it seems that Coleman caused trouble by accusing Angelou of hustling the public, selling a skimpy book in large type and large hype at a high price, containing rehashed material and what may be exaggerated claims for a high-minded, race-conscious past.

But a writer like Coleman, whose works have titles that include Mad Dog Black Lady, Bathwater Wine, and Berserk on Hollywood Blvd., can't be all bad. The daughter of a ring-damaged boxer and a domestic who worked for movie stars in Los Angeles, Coleman is a tough, combative writer who has been described by poet Marilyn Hacker as someone who "displays a verbal virtuosity and stylistic range that explodes/expands the merely linear, the simply narrative, the straightforwardly lyric, into a verbal mandala whose colors and textures spin off the page." When Coleman says Angelou's prose is loaded with inept metaphors, she knows what she's talking about. Published by a small (now defunct) independent publisher, Black Sparrow Press, and a star of the poetry slam circuit, Coleman is someone who might be called an outlaw critic, and very much the opposite of the public Angelou, a high priestess of pomp and serenity.

The reassuring textures and nurturing tones that rise in Angelou's voice rankle Coleman, representing a facade that she equates with the author's success. "Maya has obviously made her choice. If you come and you make even the racists feel comfortable and you aren't asking for any fundamental [social] change, you're going to get a fat check," she told the Voice.

Coleman's review of A Song was so scathing that her editor at the L.A. Times Book Review told her that the paper had received a lot of letters, running pro and con, and she was disinvited to a book signing at Eso Won Books, the leading African American bookstore in Los Angeles. This shocked Coleman, and according to Eso Won co-owner James Fugate, many locals. Indignant readers across the country went listserv-crazy defending either Coleman or Eso Won.

"When the bookstore thing came down," said Coleman, "I said, 'That's too cold,' because Eso Won is a major center for black writers here." Randy Ross of the International Black Writers Association (IBWA) was organizing the Eso Won event to celebrate an anthology that includes Coleman called Griots Beneath the Baobab: Tales From Los Angeles. Coleman said, "I suggested he ought to go to the media. I contacted the PEN Center West, and Tim Rutten at the L.A. Times picked up on it, then the Los Angeles Sentinel." She wrote an account of the events in Ishmael Reed's Konch magazine, and the episode got on radio and TV, too. . . .

Coleman said, "I don't think it's negative to have a dialogue, as long as it's reasoned out. I also think when a game is being run, that it should be pointed out. We have a long history of running to each other's defense but there are some things that are indefensible." . . .

One reason for the controversy is simply that the review was in the L.A. Times, and to be seen mainly by whites. Black publications rarely print tough reviews, and those who write them in mainstream publications will hear from everyone involved. But most black publications are sensitive to the fact that black readers are famously thin-skinned, and so they rarely give any occasion to be deluged with e-mail. . . .

Coleman has a similar beef with those academics who are reluctant to examine the craft of writers like Angelou. "I've been called into classrooms to say 'amen' to her as a poet," she said. "I hate having to come in and disillusion a classroom full of youth, and say, 'This is not poetry, or at least it isn't good poetry.' You're called in during Black History month, not to illuminate anything but really to say 'amen' to whatever is going on at the moment. Instead of archetypes, we're getting new stereotypes."

Source: Thulani Davis Slam Queen vs. Inaugural Poet. VillageVoice.com / September 4 - September 10, 2002

*   *   *   *   *

Wanda Coleman was born and raised in a Los Angeles slum known as Watts famed for its August 1965 Rebellion. Following this ethnic insurrection she joined a teenpost and a number of organizations set up to channel the "riotous" energies of young Black Americans into constructive modes. A struggling welfare mother, she was determined to become a writer in spite of horrific odds. A brash, abrasive frank young woman, her few sponsorships were frequently aborted by her naiveté, her stubbornness or socio-economic contingencies. Yet, a writer she must be or "die in the effort."

Initially venturing into experimental theatre and dance, she backed into scriptwriting when a teleplay scored her a nomination for the NAACP Image Awards and she became the eighth minority member of the Writers' Guild of America, West. Later there would be an Emmy, but her romance with legendary Hollywood went the legendary way of disappointment.

Subsequent stabs at success bled literary fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim Foundation in poetry. She is presently employed as a medical secretary/transcriber and co-hosts "The Poetry Connexion," an interview program with Austin Strauss for Southern California's Pacifica station.

Wanda Coleman is the author of Mad Dog Black Lady (Black Sparrow, 1979), Imagoes (Black Sparrow, 1983) and Heavy Daughter Blues: Poems & Stories 1968-1986. A War of Eyes & Other Stories is her fourth book, though first collection of fiction.

Source: Heavy Daughter Blues: Poems & Stories 1968-1986.

updated 18 October 2007