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Heavy Daughter Blues: Poems and Stories 1968-1986

Heavy Daughter Blues is the selected poetry and prose of Wanda Coleman written between 1968 and 1986 (now replaced by the more recent Black Sparrow edition, Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems edited by Terrance Hayes.)

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.

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 220
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9780876857014
  • Genres
  • poetry
  • Release date
  • 1987