In writing that is bad to God-awful, [Maya Angelou's "A Song Flung Up to Heaven"] is a tell-all that tells nothing in empty phrases and sweeping generalities. Dead metaphors ("sobbing embrace," "my heart fell in my chest") and clumsy similes ("like the sound of buffaloes running into each other at rutting time") are indulged. Twice-told crises (being molested, her son's auto accident) are milked for residual drama. Extravagant statements come without explication, and schmooze substitutes for action. Her most intriguing character, "The African," is underdeveloped. She softly decries racism in between snipes at those who marginally offended her during her "rise" (Eldridge Cleaver, a white woman at a party). Tiresomely, she repeats her mother's homilies when not issuing her own. There is too much coulda shoulda woulda.
Unfortunately, the Maya Angelou of "A Song Flung Up to Heaven" seems small and inauthentic, without ideas, wisdom or vision. Something is being flung up to heaven all right, but it isn't a song.
— Wanda Coleman, Coulda Shoulda Woulda
Coleman is among the local African American writers included in a new anthology, "Griots Beneath the Baobab: Tales From Los Angeles," published by the International Black Writers Assn. She and a number of her colleagues were scheduled to read from their work Wednesday at [LA independent, black-owned bookstore] Esowon in Leimert Park. However, after Coleman's harshly negative review of Maya Angelou's latest book, "A Song Flung Up to Heaven," appeared in the April 14 issue of The [LA] Times' Book Review, the store's owners, James Fugate and Tom Hamilton, asked the publisher to drop the poet from the roster of readers.
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Fugate said that "while there is obviously nothing wrong with thoughtful criticism, the tone of this review was personal and ugly and unnecessarily so. Nobody is censoring her, but we don't invite into our store people with whom we wouldn't want to be in the same room. Actually, I hope more people read her review, because then they will come around to our point of view."
— Tim Rutten, "Flung" Into Controversy by Negative Book Review
Critically reviewing the creative efforts of present-day African-American writers, no matter their origin, is a minefield of a task complicated by the social residuals of slavery and the shifting currents in American publishing. Into this 21st century, African-Americans are still denied full and open participation in the larger culture. Thus, our books remain repositories for the complaints and resentments harbored against the nation we love, as well as paeans to the courage, fortitude and sacrifice of peers and forebears.
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It is... incumbent upon any book reviewer to grasp the multifaceted broadening of what was once simply summarized as "The Black Experience," and it is the duty of the African-American reviewer to accurately portray, critically assess and convey this to potential readers. The ironic complexity of this task, no matter how savvy the reviewer, is best illustrated when the quality of the work produced by black writers is measured against that of whites using the criteria of excellence governing standard English and its genre, Ebonics aside. Ideally, the social context within which the work under review is created should be factored in, but should that be done to the exclusion of evaluating the quality of the writing?
By applying my own standards to Angelou's Song, my answer was -- and is -- a resounding "NO!"
— Wanda Coleman, Hunt and Peck
