Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Special offer: Receive 12 issues for just £12!
Subscribe today
Books

Wicked Enchantment by Wanda Coleman: Poems that race from line to line

As the 'Unofficial Poet Laureate of Los Angeles,' Wanda Coleman's poems are 'furiously alive,' writes Alycia Pirmohamed.

Writing Tools by Fred Merchán/Flickr

Coleman was named the ‘Unofficial Poet Laureate of Los Angeles,’ and her poems are furiously alive, both active and activist. She brings together a clarity of image with narratives that propel forward rapidly, capturing immense and powerful energy on the page. These poems are momentous in how they race from line to line, often without punctuation and in all lower-case letters, to guide our witnessing:

waftage
spirit uplifted eyes head heart
imitation of breath chest aheave
that grotesque swim up the styx
level as rainwater culls into its floodplain
the des moines
blood river born
(‘Emmett Till’)

Coleman constructs a sense of privacy that allows for deep connection with the work and the poet, such as in poems like Wanda Why Aren’t You Dead or American Sonnet, which reclaim a narrative of rage, of Black anger. But she also subverts privacy, ultimately emphasising community through letters and poems written for and after others, like Yusef Komunyakaa and June Jordan.

“The prison door has opened / and a nation’s heart is released” (‘February 11th 1990’).

Books 1465
Books 1465
Books Review. Wicked Enchantment by Wanda Coleman is out now Penguin, £9.99

It is Coleman’s strong, consistent voice throughout Wicked Enchantment that makes every written experience, every personal moment, feel like an intimate reveal:

it is i who sits beside you
it is i who sings from the shallows
it is i scratching against this silence
(Letter to My Older Sister 2)

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty


Wicked Enchantment by Wanda Coleman is out now (Penguin, £9.99)

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

SIGN THE PETITION

It's our call to Keir Starmer to pass a law to end poverty.
big issue vendor holding up a 'we need a poverty zero law' sign

Recommended for you

View all
Stone & Sky by Ben Aaronovitch review – weird happenings in the Granite City
Books

Stone & Sky by Ben Aaronovitch review – weird happenings in the Granite City

The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney review – an emotionally gripping psychological thriller
Books

The Good Father by Liam McIlvanney review – an emotionally gripping psychological thriller

The best books to read in summer 2025
Summer books

The best books to read in summer 2025

Women were a huge part of the Gold Rush. Why do we never hear about them?
Women

Women were a huge part of the Gold Rush. Why do we never hear about them?

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know

Support our vendors with a subscription

For each subscription to the magazine, we’ll provide a vendor with a reusable water bottle, making it easier for them to access cold water on hot days.