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LA native, Pam Ward recently released her first poetry book, "BETWEEN GOOD MEN & NO MAN AT ALL, World Stage Press. Pam is the author of two novels, "WANT SOME GET SOME," Kensington, chronicling a heist after the '92 riots and "BAD GIRLS BURN SLOW," Kensington, a tale of a mother working funeral homes. A UCLA graduate and recipient of a "California Arts Council Fellow" and a "Pushcart Poetry Nominee," Pam edited the first anthology of Los Angeles black women poets entitled, "The Supergirls Handbook." While operating a design studio and teaching at Art Center College of Design, Pam merged writing and graphics to produce "My Life, LA" documenting Black Angelinos in poster/stories. Pam's literary showcase, "I Didn't Survive Slavery For This!" a multi-media poetic riff on life post emancipation, featured a collective of poets of The World Stage. Pam currently designs, runs her community imprint Short Dress Press and hosts Beyond Baroque's Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop, the longest running workshop in Los Angeles. Pam recently completed her third novel "Bury My Dress on Central Ave.," about her aunt's connection to the Black Dahlia murder, a crime so horrific it shocked the whole world happening inside Pam's very own hometown.
Pam Ward is a wizard, a riot, the balm. These poems had me laughing, crying and waiting for more.
Jaha Zainabu, 365.2013
Unflinching no matter the subject at hand, Pam Ward’s “songs only grown people know” surge with a bracing vernacular familiar to those of us who’ve been thrilled and enthralled by an urban Black woman who has blended creative gifts and survivor’s savvy into rousing politically charged eloquence.
Peter J. Harris ,The Black Man of Happiness
I love these poems. I love their fire, grit, finely calibrated ferocity, syncopated outrage, in-your-face defiance, triumph and affirmation of the soul. I love the way they leap off the page to be heard, to be sung. The spirit of Wanda Coleman and Charles Bukowski are breathing among us again.
Cecilia Woloch Tsigan, The Gypsy Poem
Pam Ward shapes the distance of remembering with poignancy, a black eye, a knocked down Dinah, and blam blam. In her pen, language croons on “the corner of 43rd and pain.” Summon your courage and plunge into Ward’s truths; you’ll be glad you did.
Lynne Thompson, Fretwork
I’m proud to say I once ran in a girl gang of poets with Pam, and her strong voice still rings true. This collection covers decades of poems sung in laundromats, or cafes where the collective meets the street. The perfect witness to Los Angeles, Pam stands forward in heartbeats to healing.
Nancy Agabian, Me as her again
Ward’s lyrical storytelling flows across space and time from the Hollywood Sign to Crenshaw & 54th and the 21st century. She’s “an architect’s daughter / with a twelve story heart.” Whether she’s honoring Josephine Baker, lamenting Miles Davis or remixing Cypress Hill, her poetic skills are prodigious.
Mike Sonksen, Letters to My City
Between Good Men & No Man At All
between good men & no man at all by Pam Ward
WHY MY “T” STICKS
He threw a typewriter
at me
from the upstairs
front window
“Now use that in a poem, you bitch!”
so I did.