Wanda Coleman's hard-edged new collection interrogates death's nearsightedness. Mother outlives son. Feet wear out before the heart. And the truth-teller dies before truth frees her. These poems don't go gently. Elegy turns protest: 'there is a never and there is a too late.' These are sharp warnings from death's 'small mean domain, ' it's not too late to heed them.-- "Douglas Kearney"
Coleman presents a series of subtle and revelatory poems in her new collection. . . . Coleman's ability to simultaneously conjure the tactile and the abstract makes her works crackle with life and inspire multiple interpretations. . . . Coleman's aching and meditative poetry gives voice to inquiries and echoes.-- "Booklist"
In The World Falls Away, Wanda Coleman's poems glow with an almost radioactive edginess. Yet, there is also range and substance giving her intense American voice staying power. To use Whitman's word, her work has 'amplitude.'-- "Diane Wakoski"
What strikes me first about The World Falls Away is Wanda Coleman's musical inventiveness. These poems are sonically complex and technically riveting, Coleman's lyric poems buzzing with energy, constantly shifting rhythms, and surprising wordplay. But along with this musical dexterity comes a poetic mind of great subtlety. Whether Coleman meditates on her own life--her youth in LA, the heartbreaking death of her child--or, more broadly on music, history, or African American identity, she writes with clarity, wisdom, and piercing intelligence. This is an admirable book from start to finish.-- "Kevin Prufer"
Pulses with energy. This vibrant collection . . . offers some excellent poems.-- "Library Journal"