(10) ISHMAEL REED –

I AM A COWBOY IN THE BOAT OF RA (1972)

 

“Who was that
dog-faced man? they asked, the day I rode
from town”

One mythic trippy poem but then – “O the untrustworthiness of Egyptologists who do not know their trips”.

What’s not to love about this fusion of Egyptian mythology (and my favorite dog god Anubis), the American West and much more in the whole damn fantasy kitchen sink? Afro-American poet Ishmael Reed rocks it – or perhaps more precisely, jazzes it – in his most well-known poem that has been “dazzling, confusing, confounding and infuriating readers” since it was first published.

“Bring me my Buffalo horn of black powder
bring me my headdress of black feathers
bring me my bones of Ju-Ju snake
go get my eyelids of red paint.
Hand me my shadow
I’m going into town after Set”

 

RATING: 4 STARS****
A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

The gods speak in verse –

And move in dance

 

I live in a mythic world so I tend towards a mythic view of poetry – not unlike that of (and overlapping with) Robert Graves who saw all poets writing, consciously or otherwise, to the Theme of the Goddess.

As for what poetry is, there’s a plethora of quotations about poetry or poets, often in poetry or by poets, poetic of themselves and worthy of their own top ten.

One of those was by poet W.H. Auden – “Of the many definitions of poetry, the simplest is still the best – memorable speech”.

Wikipedia offers a somewhat fancier definition – “Poetry (from the Greek word poiesis, “making”) is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings.”

You know what? I prefer the more playful definition by TV Tropes:

Pretty words.

No, really. That’s what poetry is. Sometimes it rhymes, sometimes there are more line breaks than usual. All you really need to make a poem, though, is to put it together so it sounds good, or at least sounds the way you want it to sound.

 

Anyway, this is exactly what it says on the tin – counting down my Top 10 Poetry, by poem and poet.