From Totems to Hip-hop

by Reed, Ishmael

• ISBN13: 9781560254584
• ISBN10: 1560254580
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-12-31
• Publisher: Da Capo Press

Summary

Collects American poetry divided into sections such as nature, family, andolitics, by individuals including Bessie Smith, Langston Hughes, Agha Shahidli, Marianne Moore, Tupac Shakur, Russell Leong, and Ernesto Trejo.

Author Biography

Ishmael Reed is a novelist, poet, playwright, and essayist who has published nine critically acclaimed novels and more than a dozen other books of poetry and essays. In additional to being nominated for a National Book Award for Poetry, recent awards have included the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and 2008 Blues Songwriter of the Year from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame. He is Professor Emeritus at University of California at Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Introduction
A Lost Memory of Delhi	p. 5
Newark	p. 7
Sun with Issues	p. 8
Endangered Species	p. 11
from Elemental Journey: Anniversary Gift, #4 and #5	p. 16
Hides	p. 20
San Jose: a poem	p. 22
Three Snakes, Strawberry Canyon, Berkeley	p. 24
Hurakan: A Two Way Poem	p. 26
The Idea of Detroit	p. 28
Earth Chorus	p. 30
Shagoon 1-4	p. 32
Animal Liberation	p. 34
Oaktown CA	p. 37
Chicago	p. 39
Africa	p. 40
The Steeple-Jack	p. 41
#8 from The Past	p. 43
At Yorktown	p. 43
La Jolla. In 3 Acts	p. 45
Earthquake Blues	p. 47
Chicago	p. 49
The Heavy Bear Who Goes with Me	p. 51
Weather	p. 52
Every Where and Every When	p. 54
Cows and Alabama Folklore	p. 57
Hurricane Doris	p. 59
Love Poem to an Avocado from a Tomato	p. 63
Los Angeles	p. 64
Montana's Biggest Weekend	p. 65
Pear's Complaint	p. 67
Seeing Red	p. 69
Black Mountain Blues	p. 70
The Battle	p. 75
Woman	p. 76
The Brides Come to Yuba City	p. 78
Something Nice	p. 81
Untitled	p. 82
from Lives in Dreadful Wanting	p. 83
Love is Not a Word	p. 84
The Purpose of Altar Boys	p. 86
A Very Valentine	p. 88
Ringless	p. 88
The Widow's Lament in Springtime	p. 91
Bad Girl Blues	p. 93
Why Must U Be Unfaithful (4 Women)	p. 95
Bells	p. 99
A Place Without Shame	p. 100
In the Waiting Room	p. 102
Oh! Mercy Mercy Me! A Family Gathers to Marvin Gaye	p. 106
Callaloo	p. 110
Nani Worries About Her Father's Happiness in the Afterlife	p. 115
One Man's Family	p. 117
Good times	p. 119
The Names	p. 120
Grandmother Eliza	p. 122
April Fool Birthday Poem for Grandpa	p. 124
Aunt Helen	p. 126
Bicentennial Anti-Poem for Italian-American Women	p. 127
Dance of the Letters	p. 129
Winnings	p. 132
Joshua Clark	p. 134
Aerogramme 1-5: Los Angeles	p. 139
This Is the Poem I Never Meant to Write	p. 150
Doll	p. 152
Last Days of a Slow Cooker	p. 154
My Shattered Sister	p. 157
Hungry	p. 160
Turkey People	p. 163
Quill Holler Waller	p. 164
The Truth the Dead Know	p. 165
The Elders	p. 166
Uncle Good Intentions	p. 168
Easter: Wahiawa, 1959	p. 171
Untitled	p. 175
For My Sister	p. 176
The Cloud Unfolding	p. 178
The Fat of the Land	p. 180
Six Families of Puerto Ricans	p. 181
It's in the Blood	p. 183
The Dirty Dozens	p. 187
And in the U.S.A.	p. 193
Integrating the Strawberry Swimming Pool in 1998	p. 194
Killers	p. 198
Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, an Intelligent, Well-Read Person, Could Believe in the War between Races	p. 198
Giles Johnson, Ph.D.	p. 202
The Sony of the Smoke	p. 202
Speak the Truth to the People	p. 204
1933	p. 206
Eli, Eli	p. 209
A Semi-Revolution	p. 211
Centennial year for the Spirits	p. 211
That God Made	p. 216
1990	p. 217
Advertisement for the Waldorf-Astoria	p. 223
The Potato Manifesto	p. 228
Facing It	p. 229
What Were They Like?	p. 230
The Execution	p. 232
Milla: Mi abuela, Puerto Rico	p. 233
This Passover or the Next I Will Never Be in Jerusalem	p. 235
from America in 1918	p. 237
For the Angry White Student Who Wanted to Know If I Thought White People Ever Did Anything Good for 'the Indians'	p. 240
Poem (I Lived in the First Century)	p. 242
Between the World and Me	p. 243
Coyote Makes the First People	p. 249
Ogun's Friend	p. 250
Song 1 from Three Songs From the 50's	p. 254
Skin of Clouds	p. 255
Helen	p. 258
Tribute to Duke	p. 259
Latin Music in New York	p. 265
Joe Williams at the Blue Note/Chicago, 1955/March 30, 1999	p. 268
Wolf Warrior	p. 271
A Ballad of the Life and Times of Joe Louis: The Great Brown Bomber	p. 274
Tiva's Tapestry: La Llorona	p. 287
Filling the Gap	p. 288
Skip The Byuppie	p. 291
Crootey Songo	p. 293
Sun Yat Sen Comes to Lodi	p. 294
Trickster Rabbit	p. 296
Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan	p. 301
Viewing Mona Lisa	p. 312
Six Movements for Portraits of Erzulie	p. 313
Lady Lazarus	p. 316
Disney's Cinderella	p. 320
Madonna for the Damned-a 1980's Heroine	p. 322
A Flower from Robert Kennedy's Grave	p. 324
from The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You	p. 328
Dawnsong!	p. 334
A Poem for "Magic"	p. 339
Fallen	p. 341
Jerusalem Walked thru War	p. 342
For Malcolm X	p. 344
Searchin'	p. 345
The Imagists' Manifesto (1915)	p. 356
The Introduction to American Writers' Congress (1935)	p. 357
Gwendolyn Brooks (1969)	p. 368
An Introduction to Chinese- and Japanese-American Literature (1975)	p. 371
Adieu a Charlot (Second Populist Manifesto) (1975-1978)	p. 404
The Rise of the White Shamon as a New Version of Cultural Imperialism	p. 410
from Pro Femina (1973)	p. 424
The Introduction to Stealing the Language, the Emergence of Women's Poetry in America (1986)	p. 427
The Cannon (1999)	p. 436
Police State	p. 454
Contributors	p. 457
Acknowledgments	p. 511
Permissions	p. 513
About the editor	p. 525
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