Friends—here we are. Here you are. Here's Ada Limón reading Wanda Coleman's "Requiem for a Nest." It is almost certainly the record for times we thought we were done with the conversation and Luther realized he had more to say about the poem. Enjoy. We did—we serenely and delusionally did.
ADA LIMÓN, a current Guggenheim fellow, is the author of five poetry collections, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her fourth book Bright Dead Things was named a finalist for the National Book Award, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She serves on the faculty of Queens University of Charlotte Low Residency M.F.A program and lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
WANDA COLEMAN grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. During her lifetime she worked as a medical secretary, magazine editor, journalist, and Emmy Award-winning scriptwriter before turning to poetry. Her poetry collections include Mercurochrome: New Poems (2001), which was a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry; Bathwater Wine (Black Sparrow Press, 1998), which received the 1999 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Native in a Strange Land: Trials & Tremors (1996); Hand Dance (1993); African Sleeping Sickness (1990); Heavy Daughter Blues: Poems & Stories 1968-1986 (1988); and Imagoes (1983). She also wrote the books Jazz and Twelve O'Clock Tales: New Stories (2008), Mambo Hips & Make Believe: A Novel (Black Sparrow Press, 1999), and A War of Eyes and Other Stories (1988). Coleman lived in Los Angeles until her death on November 22, 2013.
