Ishmael Reed
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Ishmael Scott Reed (born 22 February 1938) is an American poet, essayist, and novelist. Reed is a well known African-American writer of his generation, and along with Amiri Baraka, is controversial. His work consistently satirizes the American political culture, highlighting domestic, political and cultural oppression.
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[edit] Biography
Reed was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but grew up in Buffalo, New York where he attended the University of Buffalo, a private university that became part of the state public university system after he left. The University awarded him an honorary Doctorate in 1995. He moved to New York City in 1962 and co-founded with the late Walter Bowart the East Village Other, a well-known underground publication. He was also a member of the Umbra Writers Workshop, an organization that helped establish the Black Arts Movement and promoted a Black Aesthetic.
Reed's best-known works include The Free-Lance Pallbearers (1967, Reed's first novel), Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969), Mumbo Jumbo (1972), Flight to Canada (1976), The Last Days of Louisiana Red (1974), Reckless Eyeballing (1986), and Japanese By Spring (1993). He has published more than a dozen books, including nine novels, four collections of poetry, six plays, four collections of essays, and one libretto. His New and Collected Poems, 1964-2007, received the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal.
He also edited From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900-2002 (2003), in which he endorses an open definition of American poetry as an amalgamation, which should include work found in the traditional canon of European-influenced American poetry as well as work by immigrants, hip hop artists, and Native Americans.
Reed currently lives in Oakland, California. In 1998, he received a MacArthur Fellowship, and he has recently retired from teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for thirty-five years. He has collaborated with American Jazz musicians and composers. These collaborations appear on three CDs: Conjures, 1, 2, 3. In 2007, he made his debut as a Jazz pianist and bandleader with For All We Know by The Ishmael Reed Quintet.
He is now producing The Domestic Crusaders, a Muslim American play by Wajahat Ali.
[edit] Bibliography
- The Freelance Pallbearers, 1967
- Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, 1969
- Mumbo Jumbo, 1972
- Neo-HooDoo Manifesto, 1972
- Conjure: Selected Poems, 1963-1970, 1972
- Chattanooga: Poems, 1973
- The Last Days of Louisiana Red, 1974
- Flight to Canada, 1976
- Secretary to the Spirits, 1978
- Shrovetide in Old New Orleans: Essays, 1978
- The Terrible Twos, 1982
- God Made Alaska for the Indians: Selected Essays, 1982
- Reckless Eyeballing, 1986
- New and Collected Poetry,1988
- Writing is Fighting: Thirty-Seven Years of Boxing on Paper, 1988
- The Terrible Threes, 1989
- Before Columbus Foundation Fiction Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards 1980-1990
- Airing Dirty Laundry, 1993
- Japanese by Spring, 1993
- Conversations with Ishmael Reed, ed. Amritjit Singh and Bruce Dick, 1995
- Blues City: A Walk in Oakland, 2003
- Mixing It Up: Taking on the Media Bullies and Other Reflections, 2008
[edit] References
- Nishikawa, Kinohi. "Mumbo Jumbo." The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. 5 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005. 1552-53.
[edit] External links
- Pop Matters Review of Ishmael Reed's multicultural anthology "Pow Wow"
- Ishmael Reed Publications
- Ishmael Reed by Spring
