“So don't ask me how to catch Jes Grew. Ask Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, your poets, your painters, your musicians, ask them how to catch it. Ask those people who be shaking their tambourines impervious of the ridicule they receive from Black and White Atonists, Europe the ghost rattling its chains down the deserted halls of their brains.” ArtPoetryMusicWhite SupremacyBlack Music Book:Mumbo Jumbo Source: Mumbo Jumbo
“The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes--McCarthy and Stalin--that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.” WritingArtTwoImportantBookAbleLastsArtistCultureLiteraturePoliticsLeftKnownNew YorkProduceMajorsConnectionsTownsUniversityAccessObsessedReviewsPublishingAmerican CultureManhattanPhilipVanguardBook ReviewJoe Mccarthy Book:God made Alaska for the Indians: selected essays Source: God made Alaska for the Indians: selected essays
“A lot of great art comes from the Afro-American male experience. Black men are geniuses, and many times their desperation, their position as being pariahs, leads them to great originality.” MenArtBlackPositionGeniusMalesOriginalityDesperationGreat ArtAfrosPariahs Author:Ishmael Reed
“I don't know why people always compare me [ with Amiri Baraka] I was never part of the Black Arts Repertory Theater or the Black Arts Movement; people who claim that I was are wrong. I was downtown. I was living in Chelsea when they were operating in Harlem.” PeopleKnowsArtBlackMovementClaimsTheaterCompareDowntownHarlemChelseaBlack Art Author:Ishmael Reed
“I was roommates with 2 of the guys who were influential in forming the Black Arts philosophy. I called them "goons," and [Amiri] Baraka took offense at that. But if you read his autobiography, the night we went up there for a fundraiser, he talks about how he wished that some violence would happen to us. How do you like Baraka as a gracious host?” IfsArtPhilosophyHappensNightGuyBlackViolenceHostOffenseAutobiographyInfluentialGraciousRoommateFundraiserGoonsBlack Art Author:Ishmael Reed
“Free enterprise is not a bad idea and has produced art.” ArtIdeasEnterpriseBad IdeasFree Enterprise Author:Ishmael Reed
