Mercurochrome

A self-made writer from Black Los Angeles who lived every day with racism, poverty, violence. The triumph is in words that endure. “Having Lost My Son, I Confront the Wreckage.” “The Language Beneath the Language.” “They Will Not Be Poets.” “Dreams Without Means.” “American Sonnets.” This is vintage Coleman, the poet of the people.

National Book Award in Poetry finalist, Mercurochrome is one of Coleman’s most powerful collections. With humor, anger, and sorrow, she captures the deeply person...