The Satirist’s Conjure: An Audio Profile of Ishmael Reed

To step into the world of Ishmael Reed is to enter a 'Gumbo' of the American soul—a rich, simmering pot of jazz improvisations, ancient African folklore, sharp-edged satire, and high-velocity street slang. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1938 and raised in the industrial rhythm of Buffalo, New York, Reed has spent over six decades as a literary iconoclast. For poets and lovers of the craft, he is not just a writer but a 'conjurer' who transformed the act of writing into a ritual he calls Neo-Hoodooism.

Reed’s poetic style is defined by its syncretism. He rejects the 'stultifying' constraints of Western monotheism and linear logic, opting instead for a polyphonic aesthetic that values cultural heterogeneity. In his seminal 1972 collection, 'Conjure'—which was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award—Reed solidified his reputation as a 'literary detective of the metaphysical.' His work often breaks the fourth wall, challenging the reader’s passivity and the critic’s categories. He was a key figure in the 1960s Umbra Writers Workshop, yet he famously remained an outsider to the Black Arts Movement, preferring to forge a path that celebrated the 'Neo-Hoodoo'—a spiritual and artistic method that absorbs everything from pop culture to Egyptian mythology.

One of his most enduring and innovative pieces is the meta-poetic 'Beware: Do Not Read This Poem.' It serves as a perfect introduction to his work because it is both a horror story and a warning about the consuming power of art. Reed uses non-traditional spelling and jagged typography to mirror the 'hunger' of the text itself. Note the deliberate orthography in this excerpt:

'tonite, thriller was abt an ol woman, so vain she
surrounded herself w/ many mirrors
it got so bad that finally she
locked herself indoors & her whole life became the mirrors
one day the villagers broke into her house, but she was too
swift for them. she disappeared into a mirror'

As the poem progresses, it stops being about the woman and starts being about you, the reader. Reed writes:

'back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr legs...'

This poem is the recommended starting point for any reader because it encapsulates Reed’s 'trickster' persona. It is accessible yet deeply layered, eventually shifting into a chilling commentary on disappearance with a final section that cites a statistic from the U.S. Bureau of Missing Persons. It demonstrates how Reed moves seamlessly from the fantastic to the data-driven reality of American life.

Beyond the page, Reed’s life in poetry is inextricably linked to music. A jazz pianist and lyricist, he served as the first SF JAZZ poet laureate from 2012 to 2016. His commitment to 'cultural pluralism' led him to found the Before Columbus Foundation and PEN Oakland, often referred to as the 'Blue Collar PEN,' to champion writers from marginalized backgrounds long before multiculturalism became a mainstream buzzword. In 1998, his lifetime of innovation was recognized with a MacArthur 'Genius' Fellowship.

Critical reception of Reed has often been as volatile as his prose. While he has been accused of provocation and even misogyny by some critics, others, like Robert Elliot Fox, view him as a master of collage, a writer who uses humor as a weapon to expose human absurdity. Whether he is satirizing the campus novel or 'conjuring' a new black aesthetic, Reed remains a vital, restless force in American letters—a poet who reminds us that the best poems do not just sit on the page; they wait to take us in, limb by limb.