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...