That particular sentence from Hayes’ introduction to Wicked Enchantment always struck me as funny, because of the vivid nature of its description. It’s miraculous and insightful, because it alludes to Coleman’s proximity to greatness, her musicality, and her attitude of perfection surrounding her craft, but it simultaneously alludes to the tragic reality of a great who never got their just due during their lifetime. Anyone who knows anything about the great jazz legend Miles Davis knows he was ruthless with his critique of his contemporaries and peers as he was playing his horn. The image of bitterness, rage, and righteous indignation had he not been recognized is a hellish vision. A vision that I believe we’ve become too familiar with, without the proper context, in our collective memories of Wanda Coleman. Throughout the years, I read and re-read that sentence over by Hayes, and grew discontent on landing on it as an absolute, so instead chose to see it as a doorway for further exploration. Once I became resolute in the fact that Coleman was “mean,” the next questions that plagued me were, “how did she get that way and who are the proverbial ‘no ones’ that didn’t take her horn playing seriously?”

In reflecting on Miles’s meanness and genius, there’s a famous interview clip on him from Herbie Hancock that I occasionally love to watch. In 1963, the two played in Miles’ “Second Great Quintet.” During the interview portion of the clip, Herbie talks about how he played the “wrong note” during a set, and in his failure he immediately covered his ears with his hands. In the recording of the moment, we can clearly see that the mistake pissed Miles off, but after a pause, a few eye-rolls, and huffs and grunts of his frustration, he followed behind Herbie with his horn to correct the cords. What was initially wrong was made right again. I’m certain Herbie got a talking to about his mistakes backstage after the set. Of course this was a teachable moment from Miles to Herbie, who despite his harsh attitude towards his bandmates and contemporaries is known for believing that the wrong note is only determinable by the note following it. In this sense, his meanness was permissible because he had already established himself as the greatest. Following Hayes’ contextual metaphor, Wanda Coleman’s attempts at “correcting the notes” of her peers had the opposite effect. Not because she wasn’t great, but because she was an outspoken Black woman who unapologetically dared herself to be.

In his praise of Hayes’ Wicked Enchantment, poet and critic Dan Chiasson rightfully states that Coleman was “one of the greatest poets ever to come out of L.A.” I would push this notion further, and argue that despite regional considerations, Coleman’s entire body of work showcases the most eclectic growth, range, depth, experimentation, and consistent output that is almost unmatched in modern poetry. In her praise of Hayes’ book, author Cathy Park Hong writes, “Coleman may be one of America’s best sonneteers, but she was never celebrated as such during her lifetime because she didn’t play nice. Coleman was dismissed as too angry, too despairing, too contradictory, too unruly, and too black.” I would also add that Coleman was “too poor” that the thought of “play” in regards to her life’s work wasn’t even an option.

After accessing numerous private letters to various literary figures and institutions, gathering folklore and hearsay about Coleman on her peers, and reading her controversial reviews of their works that eventually garnered her a lot of naysayers, controversies, and negative attention, I second and double down on Hayes’ and others’ assertions that Coleman was indeed “mean” as much as she was great. Rightfully so. (Allow me to correct this note) Wanda Coleman was bad: from page to stage. A rude girl through and through. She was deliciously villainous and justified in her critiques, often holding up a mirror to the holes, the double-standards, the imperfections and contradictions of Black feminist figures and ideals while also calling out canonical and institutionalized formulations that popularized, yet, ultimately weakened the output of commercialized African American writing and literature.

What Hayes so delicately hints at in his introduction are the instances of rejections and the lack of care and community that Coleman was met with throughout her life and career. This was particularly amongst other Black writers throughout the African American literary community or what she referred to as “The Black Hand Side of Things.” Though not an excuse for some of the harshness and attacks that she evoked, specifically in relation to other well-known Black women writers, one of the intentions behind the collection of essays and interviews from my forthcoming book, Wanda, Why Aren’t You Dead?, is to emphasize how her meanness and rage wasn’t wholly spiteful or ill-willed, but often in response to private and public exclusionary acts, hazing, and the misalignment of values, be it personal or professional, initiated within the Black literary community and its institutions. Through her, I invite all of us to begin having an open and honest cultural conversation on how we (mis)understand, (mis)handle, and characterize complex and genius Black literary figures—particularly Black women who refuse to fit into pre-categorized performances of respectability.

What’s fascinating about Coleman’s meanness is that, like her poetry, there is an execution that inhabits many facets. In one moment it's dangerous to the status quo, challenging any and all pre-existing sense of comfortability, respectability, or stability, and in the next moment it will have you laughing bellyful because of the accuracy of its precision, honesty, and audacity. Coleman’s meanness is dynamic and colorful as much as it is sharp and harsh. It’s a hoot. A holler. A read: All tea, all shade. A warning shot. A war-cry. A tragedy. A shriek filled with immense grief. A revelation. A prophecy. To bear witness to it is to see Coleman’s brilliance in action, akin to watching Miles correct Herbie’s note, but to be subject to it is to cause immediate responses of flight, fight, freeze or ignore. We see in his own care and reverence towards Coleman the best response to her skepticisms and affronts; a remarkable act of bravery, instinct, and emotional intelligence on his part. Hayes writes, “She only softened when she understood/believed I was a fan”. What I read from this moment is 1) Coleman’s capacity for softness was always present despite the characterizations of being “angry” and “mean” and 2) Coleman’s quiet human need, which for me is her most redeemable quality, for acknowledgement and acceptance. This moment by Hayes isn’t isolated, and is actually consistent with the recount of experiences provided by other writers who undertook the journey of getting to know Coleman.

San Francisco poet Truong Tran, in his LETTERS correspondence with Coleman by Rain Taxi Review in 2004, often remarks to me how he wanted to quit after their first few exchanges. At a fresh 30 years old, Tran initially found Coleman’s “schooling” to be overwhelming, but with encouragement from the editor and his better judgement, he stuck through with the correspondence and eventually found a connection in Coleman by the correspondence’s end. This was an act of persistence that paid off, as Coleman became one of the few figures who fully supported Tran as he matured and experienced his own trepidations in the world of poetry and academia in the years that followed. Los Angeles poet Michelle T. Clinton, during our interview to talk about Coleman, recalled a dream that she had the night prior to our conversation. In the dream she was a martial arts student who was being challenged to fight her master sensei. To alleviate the conflict between her and the sensei, she bowed three times to showcase her reverence. After doing so, the tension between her and the sensei dissipated. Perhaps this was a subconscious re-enactment of her feelings towards Coleman, but similar to Hayes and Tran, we see that those who were brave enough to see past Coleman’s protective shield of meanness with offerings of genuine acknowledgement, affection and respect often gained access to her softer, more gentle, side. Like any other human being, Coleman’s meanness is an expression of a complex web of history, socialization, personality, nerve, and wit.

I read her words on “bad blood” between her and bell hooks and reflect on the lameness of fake love, and how their interactions with each other initiated a decades-long feud that resulted in hate that never resolved itself. I read her praise of “originality” on Gwendolyn Brooks, and reflect on the genius of american Black women writers who prioritize their hometowns as their muse. Like Zora Neale Hurston from Eatonville, Gwendolyn Brooks from Chicago, and Wanda Coleman from Los Angeles—there is a lineage of Black literary originators who have demonstrated our sense of place in this country so profoundly. When I was first told the story of Coleman referring to June Jordan as a “cunt,” I gasped like the students she initially said it in front of. As a young woman, works from Jordan like “Poem about My Rights” permeated my consciousness towards empowerment:

Now with Coleman’s context, that “sanctity” takes on a whole other meaning. Admittedly, now I chuckle at its abrasiveness and audacity. In this instance, Coleman permits us to de-pedastalize, slightly, the overseriousness of iconography that some of our Black literary foremothers have famously lived under. Through Coleman’s words, these women become more tangible, fleshy, and humanized. I read her reflections on Nikki Giovanni and laugh again at her comments regarding Giovanni’s “fish lips.” I read her words on helping to “jumpstart” the career of Patricia Smith, and appreciate that Coleman had the foresight to see her brilliance early on as Smith just earned a National Book Award for Poetry in 2025. Not every writer under Coleman’s observation was the aim of her arsenal, but if we remove the pretense of respectability we bear witness to not only Coleman’s humanity and flaws, but the humanity and flaws that exist in most writers too.

I, myself, have been subject to the kind of hostility of some (not all) older Black women writers, akin to Coleman, who have developed a cold skepticism for unfamiliar fresh faces and literary perspectives. It’s a hostility that wasn’t based in care or correction, but was more bittersome. It’s a meanness that’s often initiated with a cold indifference that turns into rudeness that morphs into attacks. Dissimilar to Hayes’ experience as a young poet, my biggest champions and supporters have come primarily from the generosity of older Black and Brown men (a few White men too) within our contemporary literary networks. With Hayes being one of them. I’m always curious how these moments of generational crossroads land differently from a gendered perspective. The spillage of lineage passes down behaviors and attitudes of many forms: good and bad. Some behaviors that if unobserved or unchecked, can replicate from one literary generation to the next. As much as it humors and ignites, it also damages. Ever controversial, Coleman will always be known for dancing the line. Her meanness becomes a teachable moment for me. A reminder:

It can become a teachable moment for all of us too. In her realness, we still get to hold what’s good and natural about Coleman. Which is her complexities, nuances, imperfections, intensities, gentleness, and abrasions. Enchanted by her language, this compilation of her meanness refuses the performance of repair, silence, excuses, and recovery, but instead extends the mirror that Coleman was holding to the world while she was alive back to us in her death. What we do with it moving forward will tell us about the ritualized “flesh-eating” that exists within all of us.

From Wanda, still in her own words, I’ll show you mean…