Ishmael Reed
February 22, 1938 - Present
“During the last decades, films about the Black experience have been produced, directed, and even scripted by white men. Some of them are excellent. But most reflect George Bernard Shaw’s warning that ‘if you do not tell your stories others will tell them for you and they will vulgarize and degrade you.'” - Ishmael Reed
Early Trials and Later Success:
One of the most influential and accomplished Black writers of the twentieth century, Ishmael Reed has an astonishing collection of works that have won numerous prizes. Over his career he published over 30 books of poetry, prose, essays, and plays, in addition to writing countless individual poems, lyrics for musicians, and columns for several newspapers.
He was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1938, a place that would become central to many of his later works. He grew up facing racial prejudice that was common during the era, including watching his grandfather being murdered by a white man and recounts a doctor saying "Let that nigger die" in the hospital, referring to his grandfather. He continued to press on despite the adversity he faced, eventually graduating from the University of New York-Buffalo in 1995. He would go on to hold positions in some of the most esteemed universities in the United States, including Harvard, Dartmouth, and Yale. He had fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, The Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He won the L.A. Times Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award, the John Oliver Killens Lifetime Achievement Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Poetry Association, among numerous other awards celebrating his successes.[1] He continues to be an activists for African American rights to this day, appearing in interviews and writing novels to promote racial justice.
Courtesy of The Circle Association.
Chattanooga- Finding His Roots
Courtesy of Ishmael New and Collected Reed Poems 1964-2006
[2] Reed, Ishmael. Ishmael New and Collected Reed Poems 1964-2006. New York, Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2006.
[3] Reed, Ishmael. Another Day at the Front. New York, Basic Books, 2003.
Chattanooga, a collection of poems written by Ishmael Reed and published in 1973, focuses mainly on the struggles of African Americans during the twentieth century. The title Chattanooga refers to Reed's hometown in Tennessee, where he says he experienced much of the loss in his life as his grandmother struggled with schizophrenia and his grandfather was murdered.[1] The poems within the collection vary wildly in size, style, and content, yet are joined by their focus on origin.
One of his more memorable poems is also his shortest and is Untitled, yet the scene and emotion that is created is universally understood. The short poem is to the left, asking the question why do we stop our cars for dogs crossing the street, when there is no law prohibiting us from driving on.[2] He uses this example to show that justice for all people, even dogs, doesn’t originate from the law but instead with the people and their morals.
The next poem serves a different purpose, inspiring hope in addition to promoting justice. “Railroad Bill, a Conjuring Man,” also found in Chattanooga, uses legends from Black culture to speak to his audience. The large poem tells the story of Railroad Bill, a folklore figure who can transform into anything he chooses. We see him transform into Morris Slater, a real life Black activist figure who was killed by an enraged white man, just like Railroad Bill within the poem. The poem continues to describe Bill's funeral, and the warped way Hollywood creates grandiose stories of his life all in the name of profit, before Railroad Bill is finally freed into the stars.[2] The poem encapsulates Reed’s discontent with the way African American’s are treated in the media, and how Black culture is warped into a more pleasing view to be sold to American audiences.[3] Even as Reed continues to push back against white society, he does so in an approachable form, using mythical characters, famous figures, and storytelling to explain his position. Reed also writes like he speaks, meaning he will use words like "dis" and "hisself" for "this" and "himself" to make the poem seem more authentic.
The East Village Other- Speaking Out
In addition to his poems, Reed wrote for a number of newspapers during his career. In The East Village Other, of which Reed was an editor, Reed writes a condensed version of his novel The Free Lance Pallbearer. The work is intentionally confusing, prominently featuring a thing called “harry sam,” yet never fully defining who or what "harry sam" is. "Harry sam" is described as a person, then a place, then just a concept, and finally the topic is dropped all together until the second paragraph.
The first paragraph serves as subtle commentary on the rich and powerful, interlacing scenes of luxury hotels and power with pollution and insanity. For example, one line reads "Bishops believe that the ultimate aim of man is to fall on his haunches, whine and suck his toes."[1] The sentence starts by establishing a person of religious power but ends with an image of bishops asking people to become like babies. The paragraph ends abruptly, changing scenes in the second paragraph to a student waiting outside the deans office. The story appears normal until the dean turns into a beetle and the story devolves into a mash of different, distinct scenes connected by a flow of thought, finally ending in Nazarene's whipped in a field and eating grass like tamed animals.
Even through this confusion, Reed keeps his audience by coming back to familiar scenes, like a group of older men reader newspapers and saying paradoxes to one another. He subverts reality by combining the familiar and the absurd, which leaves the reader with bits and pieces of the full picture assembled in the excerpt. Reed also chooses to use symbols for white culture, such as a professor turning into a beetle and pushing dung in reference to Kafka’s Metamorphosis. His incorporation of famous literary works speaks to his literary knowledge and shows his creativity in using Kafka as a stand in for white culture.[2] Additionally, Reed utilizes the sublime in The Free Lance Pallbearer, a concept famously utilized by Kafka, which aims to excite emotion beyond ordinary experience. The sublime, as used by Kafka, was written to create absurd situations that are confusing to the reader but generate distinct emotional responses, like how Metamorphosis created a sense of helplessness in the reader as the main character was punished for a situation he has no control over.
Reed also uses the descriptors "Nazarene" and "Anti-Nazarene" towards the end of the piece. "Nazarene" has religious connotation, relating to both the Church of Nazarene and Jesus Christ, whereas the "Anti-Nazarenes" have no direct historical equivalent but instead just serve as opposition to the Nazarenes. From Reed's point of view, the Nazarenes represent African Americans, who share persecution with their historical counterparts, and the Anti-Nazarenes are the racists within society. This image is solidified by the end image of Anti-Nazarenes whipping Nazarenes in the field, recalling to both the era of slavery in the United States and the whipping of Christ. Overall, the piece serves to stir up dissent for the rich and powerful, to question the definition of success, and to question the treatment of other human beings purely due to labels we have put on them.
Courtesy of The East Village Other
[2] “Ishmael Reed at the Brockport Writers Forum.” YouTube, Brockport Writers Forum, 7 November 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEZkPc2hnWw.
Interviews and Activism- Pushing Back
Courtesy of the Brockport Writers Forum
[2] “Ishmael Reed at the Brockport Writers Forum.” YouTube, Brockport Writers Forum, 7 November 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEZkPc2hnWw.
[3] Reed, Ishmael. Ishmael New and Collected Reed Poems 1964-2006. New York, Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2006.
Ishmael Reed chooses to be more direct during interviews than in his written works. He is unafraid to call out publications and public speakers that he deems racist or organizations who perpetuate the racial injustice in American society. His interview with Reginald Martin is no different, as towards the beginning of the interview Reed attacks columns in the Black American Literature Forum, where Amiri Baraka called Black writers traitors. Later in the interview, Alice Walker is proclaimed the “best practitioner of Black English” by Robert Towers and Reed disputes Tower's authority to make such a claim.[1] However, it is important to distinguish that Reed was not attacking Walker, but instead Towers for asserting that he would get to name which writers are experts in Black writing and culture. He asserts that Towers, a white man who has not read some of the most influential books for African Americans, should not get to make such large claims no matter the legitimacy of those claims. These moments show Reed's dedication to his activism, and his lack of fear in saying whatever he believes to be the correct way to celebrate Black authors during such a critical time in their rise to prominence.
In another interview from the Brockport Writers Forum, Reed shows another side to his interview, in which he gives context for his works, specifically in Chattanooga and Mumbo Jumbo, as well as sharing about his past and development as a writer. This style of interview helps readers see the influences that create his poems, which helps us to interpret the meaning behind them. This is essential as many of his poems don't tell a clear story or moral upon first glance.
For example, in his interview Reed talks about his reflection on his own origins when writing Chattanooga, talking about his African American and Native American roots and the hardships his ancestors had faced. He regards all immigrants and Native Americans as pioneers, creating a better world for their future generations and facing the hardships that come with better yourself and your community.[2] While writing, Reed wanted to experience and reflect some of the hardships his ancestors faced by travelling to unfamiliar places within the United States. This context sets the undertone of struggle and racial divide that is continued throughout Chattanooga, and allows readers to gain additional insight into a poem like Untitled, which is an open ended poem asking the reader to think critically about its meaning.[3]
In these two examples we see how Reed uses interviews to inform his audience in relation to himself, his work, and his experiences in society. His activism becomes apparent but also his desire to be understood as an artist and a person. His desire and means of being understood exemplifies a larger goal to allow all Americans to see the struggles of people that are different than them in race, gender, or other means.
Thoughts and The Future
Overall, Reed loves to see the expansion of Black culture and writing, as he vouches for in his book Another Day at the Front, in which he talks about the leaps African American’s made in the printing industry during the 1960s. However, he makes it clear he wants the advancement of African Americans in American society to be for the good of themselves.[1] He does not want it to be treated as a way for white people to consume Black culture for their own pleasure and make money off of it. As Joel Brouner said, a critic of the New York Times, Reed insisted “upon the importance of culture heterogeneity.” [2] Reed has shown time and time again he wants Black culture to be integrated into American society on their own terms and to be taken seriously, not to be treated as inferior or just another commodity for American consumption.
[2] “Ishmael Reed.” Poetry Foundation, np, nd. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ishmael-reed.
Courtesy of Lindsey Patterson.
Header image courtesy of Parul Sehgal with Publisher's Weekly.
To learn more about the other artists of color in the New York School: