African Sleeping Sickness

by Wanda Coleman

Coleman is one of the decade's most moral poets, showing us in feverishly focused first- and third-person dramatic monologues the grim life of L.A.'s streets. It's impossible to paraphrase her colloquial, dynamic "where I live / the little gangsters diddy-bop through and pick up / young bitches and flirt with old ones, looking to / snatch somebody's purse or find their way into somebody's / snatch 'cause mama don't want them at home and papa / is a figment and them farms them farms them farms / they call schools, and mudflapped bushy-headed entities / swoop the avenue seeking death / it's the only thrill left / where I live" Understanding does not mean, to Coleman, mild forgiveness, it means hot rage against those of any color who prey on others in pain. Contextualizing murder, rape, poverty, addiction showing us their human faces gives Coleman a 'shattered heart,' makes her feel 'thrown heart first into this ruin,' but the experience transforms the reader. Pat Monaghan, Booklist

Genres: Poetry

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Coleman was born Wanda Evans, and grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles during the 1960s. She received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, The NEA, and the California Arts Council (in fiction and in poetry). She was the first C.O.L.A. literary fellow (Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, 2003). Her numerous honors included an Emmy in Daytime Drama writing, The 1999 Lenore Marshall Prize (for "Bathwater Wine"), and a nomination for the 2001 National Book Awards (for "Mercurochrome"). She was a finalist for California poet laureate (2005).

Reviews

[Pesh]

I guess am allowed to make a wish; that i lay my hands on this book sometime soon.

[Julene · Rating 5 out of 5]

African Sleeping Sickness: Stories & Poems is a double book including Mad Dog Black Lady (revised from first edition in 1979) and African Sleeping Sickness. It holds American Sonnet #2, and no others of her series of 100 American Sonnets. I read this book long ago and was checking it to find what American Sonnets I already have in the books on my shelf.

A poem:

What the beast eats

those yellow portals
glisten in twinnight—"surrender"

jaguars mustangs mink
skyscrapers in afternoon sunlight
silhouettes of leafless branches against night shades

it eats sex in the dark and loud music

it eats my peace
and all the dramas inbetween

[Mills College Library]

811.54 C692a 1990