S239. From Which We Spring: A Tribute to Los Angeles Iconoclast Poet Wanda Coleman

Oregon Ballroom 203, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2
Saturday, March 30, 2019
1:30 pm to 2:45 pm

 

"A yearning to avenge the raping of the womb /  from which we spring." Five poets discuss the art, life and legacy of poet Wanda Coleman, known as the unofficial poet laureate of Los Angeles. Wanda passed away unexpectedly at the age of sixty-seven, but her ferocious and firey voice charged generations of writers. Hear these five influential authors read some of her most provocative and captivating work while discussing the life of one of America's most potent yet unknown black feminist writers.


Participants

Moderator:

Amber Tamblyn is an author, actress, and director who has been nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Independent Sprite award. She is the author of three collections of poetry including the critically acclaimed Dark Sparkler and the novel Any Man. She writes for the New York Times.

Kevin Young is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, most recently Brown. His nonfiction book Bunk won the Anisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and poetry editor of the New Yorker.

Jeffrey McDaniel is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Chapel of Inadvertent Joy. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

Mahogany L. Browne is a Cave Canem, Poets House, Rauschenberg, Bearing Witness, and Serenbe Focus alum, playwright, poet, and organizer. Publisher of Penmanship Books, she earned her MFA in Writing & Activism from Pratt Institute, and she serves as Artistic Director of Urban Word NYC.

Patricia Smith's books include Incendiary Art (2018 Kingsley Tufts winner, 2018 Pulitzer finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner), Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (2013 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize winner), and Blood Dazzler (2008 National Book Award finalist). A 2014 Guggenheim fellow, two-time Pushcart Prize winner, Smith is a professor at CUNY and in Sierra Nevada College's MFA program.

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February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center