{"product_id":"heart-first-into-this-ruin-the-complete-american-sonnets-9781574232530","title":"Heart First Into This Ruin: The Complete American Sonnets","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"Fantastically entertaining and deeply engaging...potent distillations of creative rage, social critique, and subversive wit.\"--\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Terrifying and fearlessly inventive.\"--\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe first complete collection of Wanda Coleman's original and inventive sonnets. Long regarded as among her finest work, these one hundred poems give voice to loving passions, social outrage, and hard-earned wisdom. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWanda Coleman was a beat-up, broke Black woman who wrote with anger, humor, and ruthless intelligence: \"to know, i must survive myself,\" she wrote in \"American Sonnet 7.\" A poet of the people, she created the experimental \"American Sonnet\" form and published them between 1986 and 2001. The form inspired countless others, from Terrance Hayes to Billy Collins. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDrawn from life's particulars, Coleman's art is timeless and universal. In \"American Sonnet 61\" she writes: \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ereaching down into my griot bag \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eof womanish wisdom and wily \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003esocial commentary, i come up with bricks \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ewith which to either reconstruct \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ethe past or deconstruct a head.... \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003efrom the infinite alphabet of afroblues \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eintertwinings, i cull apocalyptic visions \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e(the details and lovers entirely real) \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eand articulate my voyage beyond that \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003epoint where self disappears \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThese one hundred sonnets--borne from influences as diverse as Huey P. Newton and Herman Melville, Amiri Baraka and Robert Duncan--tell Coleman's own tale, as well as the story of Black and white America. From \"American Sonnet 2\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003etowards the cruel attentions of violent opiates \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eas towards the fatal fickleness of artistic rain \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003etowards the locusts of social impotence itself \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ei see myself thrown heart first into this ruin \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003enot for any crime \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ebut being \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis is a collection of electrifying truth that only an artist such as Wanda Coleman can deliver. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eColeman, Wanda:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWanda Coleman\u003c\/b\u003e--poet, storyteller and journalist--was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. Coleman was awarded the prestigious 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBathwater Wine\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e from the American Academy of Poets, becoming the first African-American woman to ever win the prize, and \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMercurochrome\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e was a bronze-medal finalist for the 2001 National Book Award for Poetry. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWicked Enchantment: Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e was the first new collection of her work since her death in 2013.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBrowne, Mahogany L.:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - \u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eMahogany L. Browne\u003c\/b\u003e is a writer, organizer, and educator. She served as the Lincoln Center's first ever poet in residence, and works as the executive director of JustMedia, a media literacy initiative designed to support the groundwork of criminal justice leaders and community members. Her books include \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBlack Girl Magic\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChlorine Sky\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e, \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eVinyl Moon, Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e, and \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eI Remember Death by Its Proximity to What I Love\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e, a poetry collection responding to the impact of mass incarceration on women and children. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Black Sparrow Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50642085708050,"sku":"9781574232530","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_29372248-72eb-40fa-af24-58053ab1d1f9.jpg?v=1733056700","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/heart-first-into-this-ruin-the-complete-american-sonnets-9781574232530","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}