Ostinato Vamps.Ostinato ostinato: see ground bass. Vamps by Wanda Coleman University of Pittsburgh Press The University of Pittsburgh Press is a scholarly publishing house and a major American university press in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. The Press was established in September 1936 by University of Pittsburgh Chancellor John Gabbert Bowman. , October 2003 $12.95, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-822-95833-3 With Ostinato Vamps, Wanda Coleman once again compels audiences to mine the depths "under the dark gnarled word" with her first published volume since the demise of Black Sparrow Press. Weighty with poems that defy characterization as much as they invite discussion, this raunchy but delicately provocative collection restores faith in the power and pleasure of the word. Employing dramatic lyric and extravagantly ornamental language, Coleman crafts a finely tuned dissonance, a brilliant cacophony that intoxicates as it disrupts. Full of twists and turns, jagged detours, startling contortions, and "stained and broken teeth," Coleman's explosive reach explores and makes tangible every aspect of the vernacular in urban living--elucidating the meaning-filled contradictions of folks' endeavors to survive and thrive in the face of pervasive hostilities, violent rages, and coreplex and competing desires. Situating blues aesthetic in jazz composition, Coleman delivers defiant, vulgar, quick-tongued truths, presenting improvisation at the margins, the often overlooked narratives inhabiting the between, portraits of women and men who are at once ruined and triumphant, stubborn testimonials to the resilience of the living. Remarkably ambitious, the collection displays the depth of Coleman's responsiveness and the precision of her perception. Most challenging to normative modes of meaning-making--and perhaps therefore the most rewarding poems--are the sprawling multivocal fugues See
n. pl. o·li·os 1. A heavily spiced stew of meat, vegetables, and chickpeas. 2. a. A mixture or medley; a hodgepodge. b. Intaglio intaglio (ĭntăl`yō, –täl`–), design cut into stone or other material or etched or engraved in a metal plate, producing a concave, instead of a convex, effect. It is the reverse of a relief or cameo. " and "The Weight of My Heart." Dr. Duriel E. Harris is poetry editor for Obsidian lie Literature hi the African Diaspora. |
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