Ishmael Reed Reads from Poetry, Old and New

Ishmael Reed has been nominated for a National Book Award in poetry, and in 2007 received the Gold Medal for Poetry from the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco for his “New and Collected Poetry, 1964-2006.” He is also a songwriter and in 2008, received an award for Blues song writer of the year from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame. In addition to reading from his poetry, he will show Mary Wilson of The Supremes performing a song of his and Taj Mahal singing one of his songs from a CD that will be released in November. A poem written in Seattle in 1969, “Beware: Do Not Read This Poem,” has been cited by the Gale Research Company as “one of the approximately 20 poems that teachers and librarians have identified as the most frequently studied in literature courses.”