Items

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  Kalamazoo Set List

  Coleman created this poetry set list in anticipation of in anticipation of his virtual readings at Earlham College and Kalamazoo College. Handwritten notes include his gratitude to the organizers, as well as a list of ordered poems.
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  Fort Gondo "St. Trigger" Broadside

  Fort Gondo was a poetry reading series held at a Cherokee Street art gallery in St. Louis. Using Coleman's poem, "St. Trigger," the broadside was created by Saturday Press for Coleman's reading at Fort Gondo Poetry Series No. 30.
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  Pulitzer Correspondence

  This thank you note was given to Coleman at the same time he was  gifted a framed photograph  from the Pulitzer Arts Foundation on his last day of work as Public Arts Project Assistant. This moment marked the end of his third year fellowship in the MFA program, and the precipice of beginning the International Writer track in the Comparative Literature department at Washington University in St. Louis.
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  Black Constellations Syllabus

  Coleman created this syllabus for a Black Constellations course, which he created during his third year in the Comparative Literature PhD program. The course mapped trajectories in 20th Century Black poetics.
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  Notes from NPR Interview

  Coleman's handwritten notes from an NPR Interview on Poetry and Translation for National Poetry Month prepare for a discussion on his book of poems, Threat Come Close. He writes, "The book is about finding powerful yet vulnerable intersections in African American memory and imagination. It's also about what it means to be a man, and a black man in our current, complicated world..."
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  Black Rep Theatre Set List

  These handwritten notes detail Coleman's performance set list for the Black Rep Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri. Some of the poems listed include "Very Many Hands," "On Acquiescence"  and "American Football" among others.
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  An Anthology of Black American Literature

  This special issue of the Chicago Quarterly Review presents fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art from Black American writers and artists, as selected by guest-editor, Charles Johnson, whose papers also reside in the Modern Literature Collection. Four of Coleman’s poems are included.
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  “Red Wilderness"

  This poetry submission won Coleman the 2020 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship and some of its poems are forthcoming in Coleman´s next book, scheduled for publication in 2024.
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  “Very Many Hands” draft

  An early draft of “Very Many Hands” was previously titled “Projection-Possession-Production" and composed as prose in Professor Danielle Dutton’s class, experimenting with genre and hybridity. This poem would go on to be published in Threat Come Close.
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  Southern Indiana Review acceptance letter

  The poem “God’s Island” was accepted for fall 2015 or spring 2016, and was already slated for inclusion in the upcoming publication of St. Trigger.
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  Threat Come Close manuscript

  Coleman worked on this manuscript the summer before his 3rd year fellowship as he began turning his MFA thesis into a book. He notes changes as well as possibilities for university translation programs.
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  St. Trigger, Minneapolis, Minnesota: Button Poetry/Exploding Pinecone Press

  Coleman incorporated all but one poem from this chapbook, winner of the 2016 Button Poetry Prize, into his book Threat Come Close.
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  “A Certain Slant of Light” and “To a Hand Below” drafts

  These are earlier drafts of “Too Far North” from Threat Come Close (and published by The New York Times Magazine before that), ultimately becoming a sonnet: 14 lines, 2 septets.
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  Threat Come Close, Tribeca, New York, NY: Four Way Books

  Coleman’s debut book won the 2020 GLCA New Writers Award for Poetry. Early mentor Diane Seuss wrote: “Whitman-like in its expansiveness, with Dickinson’s ferocious interiority, this collection represents the ravishing next step in American poetry.”
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  The New York Times Magazine

  This issue includes "Too Far North" by Coleman with an introduction by the poet Terrance Hayes, who selected the poem for the publication. Coleman has signed this copy.
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  Ink Drawing on Cardboard

  Drawing by Coleman of his literary influences as branches and roots of a tree for Comparative Literature’s “Literature in the Making” international writers workshop.
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  “St. Inside & Not” manuscript draft

  This handwritten poem was later published in Threat Come Close with the exception of the notes: "I am a black poet who will not remain silent while this nation murders black people. We have a right to be angry."
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  “Self-Portrait as Tonic in Glass” draft

  In earlier drafts, Coleman used self-portraiture to build some of his poems. ¨Self-portrait as Tonic in a Glass¨ later became “On Forgiveness” in Threat Come Close.
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  “St. Trigger” draft

  In both St. Trigger and Threat Come Close the form for ¨St. Trigger¨ changes and becomes page to field. This draft includes notes during his visit with Visiting Hurst Professor C.D. Wright.
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  "Who” draft

  A nonce form is a form created by the poet; in this case, leaning into experimentation with form was especially important as Coleman was reshaping his relationship to language during the MFA and PhD. This poem later becomes “St. Who” in Threat Come Close.