Who or what is the poet Ishmael? An intellectual anti-intellectual. A religious opponent of religion. A duelling pacifist. A black antagonist champion of blacks. A poet influenced by Yeats, Pound, Blake, and the Umbra poets. A Black Arts poet who attacks Black Arts critics and poets. A satirical creator of myths. An ideologue who derides ideologies. A poet who ranges in allusion from Nixon to Wotan and Osiris. A poet of the topical and the ancient. A poet ignored in Stephen Henderson's trenchant analysis of the blackness of contemporary black poetry (Understanding The New Black Poetry, 1973), but whose poetry offers a point-by-point illustration of Henderson's analysis. Stir these contradictions together in a vat of satire; whirl yourself wildly until dizzy; then pour slowly. The brew is the poetry of Ishmael Reed, to be sipped as delicately as one might sip a potion of 2 parts bourbon, 1 part vodka, and a dash of coke. There is no guarantee that every drinker will like the concoction. Occasionally, the sip is flat. Most often, however, it is quickly intoxicating. (pp. 209-10)
The great theme of black poetry, Henderson argues, is Liberation. For Reed, this term has double meaning: not only to get the white man's foot off his neck but also to escape the nets cast by his black brothers. (p. 210)
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