New and Collected Poems


Book Description

Reed's poems are conjured from a mix of black speech and music, mythology, voodoo, and pop culture. Ribald, hyperbolic and highly satiric, they have continually lambasted the Judeo-Christian cultural heritage and sought spiritual and intellectual liberation in the black counter-tradition he calls neo-hoodoo. Reed's later collections are less overtly ideological, and alternate anger with an increased tolerance and recognition of ambiguity. ISBN 0-689-12003-6: $22.95.




Windcatcher


Book Description

Spanning the period between 1964 and 2006, a new collection of poetry by the author of Dog Heart and Lady One includes many never-before-published works, including poems written in prison after being jailed in South Africa for his anti-apartheid activism, as well as 1960s works from Paris, and poems of exile from New York in the 1990s.




New and Collected Poems


Book Description

A collection including six earlier volumes of Wilbur's poetry, twenty-seven new poems, and a cantata.




Selected Poems of Rita Dove


Book Description

Here in one volume is a selection of the extraordinary poems of Rita Dove, who, as the nation's Poet Laureate from 1993 to 1995, brought poetry into the lives of millions of people. Along with a new introduction and poem, Selected Poems comprises Dove's collections The Yellow House on the Corner, which includes a group of poems devoted to the themes of slavery and freedom; Museum, intimate ruminations on home and the world; and finally, Thomas and Beulah, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, a verse cycle loosely based on her grandparents' lives. Precisely yet intensely felt, resonant with the voices of ordinary people, Rita Dove's Selected Poems is marked by lyric intensity and compassionate storytelling.




Flight to Canada


Book Description

DIVIshmael Reed’s parody of slave narratives—the classical literature of the African American tradition—which redefined the neo-slave genre and launched a lucrative academic industry/divDIV Some parodies are as necessary as the books they answer. Such is the case with Flight to Canada, Ishmael Reed’s scathing, offbeat response to conventional anti-slavery novels such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Though Flight to Canada has been classified by some as a “post race” novel, the villains and the heroes are clear./divDIV /divDIVThree slaves are on the run from the Swille plantation. Among them, the most hotly pursued is Raven Quickskill, a poet who seeks freedom in Canada, and ultimately hopes to return and liberate others. But this particular Civil War–era landscape is littered with modern elements, from Xerox copiers to airplanes, and freely reimagines historic figures as sacred as Abraham Lincoln. A comedy flashing with insight, Flight to Canada poses serious questions about history and the complex ways that race relations in America are shaped by the past. /divDIV /divDIVThis ebook features an illustrated biography of Ishmael Reed including rare images of the author./div




Collected Poems


Book Description

A complete anthology of the British modernists poetic works explores the ways in which her writing challenged formal conventionalism and class issues, in a volume that includes Fadotade, Clowns Houses, and Gold Coast Customs.




Reckless Eyeballing


Book Description

Masochism is out and feminism is in, Jews are out and Germans are in, race is out and gender is in, and everyone's fighting (and rewriting) for a piece of the pie. Jewish director Jim Minsk disappears during a trip to the South. Black playwright Ian Ball writes the all-female play Reckless Eyeballing in hopes of getting off the "sex-list." Preeminent playwright Jack Brashford, claiming the Jews stole all his black material, decides to write about Armenians. In the background, an unknown assailant dubbed the "Flower Phantom" runs loose through the city shaving heads of prominent black feminists (to the secret delight of black men).In this hilarious, devastating, but also deeply sympathetic novel, Ishmael Reed turns characters on the backs, sides, tops and bottoms to expose the multiple hypocrisies at the heart of American culture.




Airing Dirty Laundry


Book Description

A collection of essays in which Reed confirms his status as an "Establishment" agitator, an undying advocate of multiculturalism, and a supportive and nurturing presence in a variety of artistic endeavors from writing to rap.




NeoHooDoo


Book Description

This title examines the work of 35 artists, including Jimmie Durham, David Hammons, José Bedia, Rebecca Belmore and James Lee Byars, who began using ritualistic practices during the 1970s and 1980s as a way of reinterpreting aspects of their cultural heritage.




The Show I'll Never Forget


Book Description

In The Show I'll Never Forget, writer Sean Manning has gathered an amazing array of unforgettable concert memories from a veritable A-list of acclaimed novelists, poets, biographers, cultural critics, and songwriters. Their candid, first-person recollections reveal as much about the writers' lives at the time as they do about the venues where the shows occurred or the artists onstage. Ishmael Reed on Miles Davis Luc Sante on Public Image Ltd. Heidi Julavits on Rush Daniel Handler and Andrew Sean Greer on Metric Diana Ossana on Led Zeppelin Maggie Estep on Einsturzende Neubauten Dani Shapiro on Bruce Springsteen Gary Giddins on Titans of the Tenor! Nick Flynn on Mink DeVille Susan Straight on The Funk Festival Rick Moody on the The Lounge Lizards Jennifer Egan on Patti Smith Harvey Pekar on Joe Maneri Thurston Moore on Glen Branca, Rudolph Grey, and Wharton Tiers Chuck Klosterman on Prince Sigrid Nunez on Woodstock Jerry Stahl on David Bowie Charles R. Cross on Nirvana Marc Nesbitt on The Beastie Boys And many more . . . No matter where your musical taste falls, these often funny, occasionally sad, always thought-provoking essays-all written especially for The Show I'll Never Forget-are sure to connect with anyone who loves, or has ever loved, live music.