Mercurochrome

by Coleman, Wanda

• ISBN13: 9781574231557
• ISBN10: 1574231553
• Edition: Limited
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-07-01
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Pr

Summary

Coleman's courageous, impassioned voice, defiantly affirming itself in the face of social injustice and institutional dehumanization, rings out clearer than ever in her new book, Mercurochrome. So does her sensuous, vivid, tactile "verbal mandala": "love / as i live it seems more like mercurochrome / than anything else /i can conjure up. it looks so pretty and red, /and smells of a balmy / coolness when you uncap the little applicator. /but swab it on an / open sore and you nearly die under the stabbing / burn. recovery / leaves a vague tenderness...".

These high-energy, incandescent poems turn up the emotional thermostat, sizzling and shooting off sparks.

Table of Contents

The Language Beneath the Language	15	(19)
Canned Fury	19	(72)
Twentieth Century Nod-Out
El Camino Real	27	(1)
At Sun's Set, My Boy	28	(1)
Hollywood Theology (2)	29	(2)
Ganguly Cento	31	(1)
Off Bonnet Sonnet	32	(1)
A Stonehold	33	(1)
Off Bonnet Sonnet (2)	34	(1)
Off Bonnet Sonnet (3)	35	(1)
Locofo'co	36	(2)
Southtown Mysteries	38	(1)
Union Station	39	(2)
Just as Sure as I Lived	41	(1)
Soft Boy	42	(1)
Christening	43	(1)
The Children (2)	44	(1)
Disconnections	45	(3)
Conversations with Daddyboy	48	(2)
Letter to My Older Sister (3)	50	(1)
Unseated Cube Woman Weeping	51	(1)
Letter to My Older Sister (4)	52	(2)
Unfinished Note Found in a Kerouac Paperback	54	(2)
In That Other Fantasy Where We Live Forever	56	(1)
The Souled Out Generation	57	(1)
Zed Chronology	58	(1)
The Flock of the Ewe	59	(1)
Essay on Language (6)	60	(3)
Hello Laura Nyro	63	(1)
Champagne & Js	64	(1)
The Lady in the Red Veiled Hat	65	(2)
Essay on Language (7)	67	(2)
Incomplete Acts	69	(1)
Letter to My Older Sister (5)	70	(2)
Dream 727	72	(1)
For Tuco the Ugly	73	(1)
Unseated Cube Woman Weeping (2)	74	(1)
A Strange Excitement	75	(1)
Espantalepsis (2)	76	(1)
Dream 810	77	(1)
Espantalepsis (3)	78	(1)
They Will Not Be Poets	79	(1)
Twentieth Century Nod-Out	80	(1)
Twentieth Century Nod-Out (2)	81	(1)
Against Forgetting Cento	82	(1)
Ribbon's End	83	(1)
I Will Never Be Ready	84	(2)
On My Last Day on Earth	86	(1)
Weathercast	87	(1)
Merwoman	88	(3)
American Sonnets (25, 87--100)	91	(18)
Metaphysically Niggerish
Black Velvet Caesura	109	(1)
Fatback Mama Yaya	110	(1)
Afro-American Studies 101	111	(2)
The 4-Plex	113	(1)
Boneskeeper	114	(2)
For All Your Flavorless Effort	116	(3)
thiefheart	119	(1)
Paper Riot	120	(3)
Dreams Without Means	123	(1)
Blind Cassandra	124	(1)
On the Righteous Badmouth (2)	125	(1)
It's Crab Trap, Sonia	126	(1)
the words are still burning	127	(2)
Three-Headed Womon Song	129	(1)
Hornets	130	(2)
Low English	132	(2)
Sears Life	134	(1)
Business As Usual	135	(1)
Soon Ja	136	(2)
Invader from Lala	138	(1)
Busted on My Watch	139	(2)
Single Doom Occupancy	141	(2)
To an Interloper	143	(1)
South Central Los Angeles Deathtrip 1982	144	(6)
What It Is. That We Do	150	(2)
Unfinished Ghost Story (9)	152	(3)
Confessions Noires (2)	155	(2)
Unfinished Ghost Story (11)	157	(2)
Oreo Cookie Oracle	159	(1)
Metaphysically Niggerish	160	(3)
Retro Rogue Anthology
Do Drop In	163	(2)
Indeedth	165	(1)
In No Time at All	166	(1)
Card 78	167	(1)
Soul Survivors	168	(1)
Interrogation	169	(3)
Dream Song 811	172	(1)
Consciousness Raising Exercise	173	(1)
A View to the Madness	174	(1)
The Queen on Her Color	175	(3)
The Logical Negativists	178	(1)
Blood Arousal	179	(1)
Black Alice Laments	180	(2)
Thunderhead	182	(1)
Put Some Sex Sonnet	183	(1)
I Ain't Yo Earthmama (3)	184	(2)
God? She's Black	186	(1)
The Heaven of Egalitarian Ideas	187	(2)
Sneaker (2)	189	(4)
The Big Moment	193	(1)
Supermarket Surfer	194	(1)
Cottonmouth	195	(1)
Asphalt Cadets	196	(1)
The Knives	197	(1)
The Last of the Cool Jerks	198	(2)
Naked Tarantula	200	(2)
By the Light of the Word	202	(2)
December 22, 1997	204	(1)
The Unexpressed	205	(2)
Obituary	207	(1)
Notes on a Departure	208	(10)
Immunoresistant	210	(1)
Red Squall	211	(1)
To the Head Nigger Wench in Charge	212	(1)
No Justice---Just Us	213	(1)
The Loss that Eats the World	214	(1)
Exiled to the Outskirts	215	(2)
Sliding Door Meditation	217	(2)
Her Poem	219	(1)
Ad Nauseam	220	(1)
Aroused	221	(1)
O the Depths Below	222	(1)
Keeping Things Honest	223	(1)
My Bleak Visitation	224	(1)
Ground Sick	225	(2)
The Monsters	227	(2)
Leave-Taking	229	(2)
Something Left Behind	231	(1)
Outside In	232	(1)
The Spider Inside Her	233	(2)
Satisfaction	235	(2)
After Curfew	237	(2)
For Women Who Cruise the Night	239	(1)
What Rots	240	(1)
Goody Goody Two Shoes	241	(1)
Having Lost My Son, I Confront the Wreckage	242	(1)
Commitment	243	(1)
A&W	244	(3)
A Kingdom of Clouds
Dreamer's Habitat	247	(1)
Letter to My Older Sister (6)	248	(1)
Shadow Laugh	249	(1)
Black-Handed Curse	250	(1)
Prosodia Cento: Morphia Speaks	251	(1)
Tongue Enormity Consciousness	252	(2)
Amnesia Fugue	254	(14)
Moon Cherries	268