October 6, 2003
Coleman's last two explosive, masterful collections were Mercurochrome
, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and Bathwater Wine
, which was awarded the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Ostinato Vamps
seems markedly less verbally dazzling; it is also angrier and more willing to state the case for poetry-as-documentary: "there's the necessity of music cut with bloody weeping." A poem that paints a grotesque, devastating portrait of a homeless woman ("scratchin'/ that tattoo above her crepe-paper/ titty...") nevertheless ends with a kind of redeeming prayer—"moonsparkle angelsleep...." Some of the work here is not electric enough to shock redemption out of despair, but nevertheless talks straight about "happiness that has a price / tag on it." The two longer poems ("Night Widow Fugue" and "Sorceress of Muntu") weave several voices and narratives and snippets of blues lyrics into rich fields of human struggle, and possess a soaring, lyric openness where, in the confident leaps and breathing spaces, hope and resistance to socially imposed fate begin to burn in the voices portrayed—and in a reader's caught mind.
November 15, 2003
Winner of the prestigious Lenore Marshall Prize in 1999 for Bathwater Wine, Coleman continues to prove herself one of the more innovative poets writing today. "Eternity ends where Hollywood begins," she states playfully, and in more politically charged play asks "how many African violets does it take/ to jump-start a heart?" If Coleman's love of language were not so apparent on every page, her major themes-birth and femininity, slavery and history-might well get lost in mundane polemics: we've heard this before but seldom with such lyrical grace. Her long poems-and there are several here-follow Charles Olson's famous dictum that every perception must lead directly or indirectly to the next perception, but what astounds is the clarity and uniqueness of her perceptions. No, she tells us, life is not easy, and there is certainly a lot of domestic disharmony in this book. But as she says in "Peace," a poem near the book's end, "and let the war all wars/ be fought on soft mattresses/ between legs and lovers." The demise of Black Sparrow Press necessitated Coleman's move to the University of Pittsburgh Press, but her politics might, if anything, be better served in this new context. Highly recommended.-Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York
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