Ishmael Reed

In fact, Thomas Pinchon gives us a little bit of a book recommendation.

He says, check out Ishmael Reed, who wrote Mumbo Jumbo, which I have not read, but seems to sort of deconstruct western civilization from an afrocentric lens was my like summary that i read online uh and a friend of mine who listens to the pod uh recommended it and said it is a great companion to read with gravity's rainbow so i don't know that i want to commit to reading another book on the patreon but it could be up for consideration How

many pages is it? I don't know.

I think I've heard of Ishmael Reed.

I've not read this book, but I do think it is really funny to just like throw out like shout out to someone else who's like really got it going on.

Thomas Pinchon's pick of the week.

Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo.

I think it's 200 some pages.

They were the first presses to recognize the legitimacy of Asian American literature.

So my first novel, Home Base, was published by Ishmael Reed when nobody would publish it.

Finally, Ishmael, who had a small press, He says, I'll publish it.

And it won awards and it became successful.

And then once it started selling, Penguin picked it up and reissued it.

So Howard University Press and then Ishmael Reed's publication.

And then the third was another publication by Ishmael Reed called Yardbird, published my third book.

I remember meeting Ishmael Reed in 1969.

The artists aren't necessarily poets and may simply read their works, set them to musical accompaniment, or spin tales culled from their experiences living in Los Angeles.

Jazz Speak features works focusing on the jazz experience and mixes local poets with such national literary figures as Amiri Baraka and Ishmael Reed.

These are, um, other releases in the series.

Black and Tan Club anthologizes local writers whom Kubernik has been championing but ran up against resistance when trying to land recording deals and live bookings for them.

Right.

Yeah, I'm in this... play, this Ishmael Reed play called the Emanuenses and last October I was in this stage reading of it but then this is Oh, an undertaking of a full production.

So you have to

memorize your lines.

And then when I started grad school, I went straight from undergrad into a PhD program.

And when I started grad school, I read Ishmael Reed for the first time-

Mm

... and George Schuyler, and they blew my mind.

Mm.

Black satirists and people who do a lot of, like, cultural commentary have been my major influences.

I'm sorry, who was it you said after Ishmael Reed? Schuyler?

George, George Schuyler.

I was very lucky to come of age as a poet when I did.

Audre Lorde was a mentor, Adrienne Rich, Ishmael Reed.

I've had so many mentors.

I've had an ongoing correspondence with my first poetry teacher at the University of New Mexico, David Johnson.

It's really only the first step.

And I remember hearing Ishmael Reed do a reading at Stanford, and someone in the audience asked him with, with no small amount of hostility why he was writing these books when m- most likely no one in his own neighborhood would read the books that he was writing.

And I forget, I forget his answer, but I remember thinking at the moment that, that Mr. Reed had different constituencies.

He has his moral constituen- constituency for whom he's writing, and it doesn't matter whether they're reading it or not.