Poetry Weekend - Ishmael Reed And Tennessee Reed at California Jazz Conservatory

Tennessee Reed is the author of seven poetry collections, a memoir and a novel. Tennessee has read her work throughout the Continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Israel and Japan. She is the secretary of PEN Oakland and the managing editor of Konch Magazine.

Ishmael Reed is author of thirty books to date, including his eleventh non-fiction work, The Complete Muhammad Ali (Baraka Books, July, 2015); his tenth novel, Juice! (2011); and New and Collected Poems, 1964-2007 (2007). His seventh play, The Final Version, premiered at New York’s Nuyorican Poets Café in December 2013; his other six plays are collected in Ishmael Reed, THE PLAYS (2009). In addition he has edited numerous magazines and fourteen anthologies, of which the most recent is Black Hollywood Unchained (2015). He is also a publisher, songwriter, public media commentator, lecturer, and founder of the Before Columbus Foundation and PEN Oakland, non-profit organizations run by writers for writers. After teaching at the University of California, Berkeley for over thirty years, he retired in 2005 and now teaches at California College of the Arts. He is a MacArthur Fellow, with other honors including the University of Buffalo’s 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize nominations, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Award, and San Francisco LitQuake’s 2011 Barbary Coast Award. Awarded the 2008 Blues Songwriter of the Year from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame, his collaborations with jazz musicians for the past forty years were also recognized by SFJazz Center with his appointment, from 2012-2016, as San Francisco’s first Jazz Poet Laureate and in Venice, Italy, where he became the first Alberto Dubito International awardee , May, 2016, honored as “a special artistic individual who has distinguished himself through the most innovative creativity in the musical and linguistic languages.” His online international literary magazine, Konch, can be found at ishmaelreedpub.com....

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Tennessee Reed is the author of seven poetry collections, a memoir and a novel. Tennessee has read her work throughout the Continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, England, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Israel and Japan. She is the secretary of PEN Oakland and the managing editor of Konch Magazine.

Ishmael Reed is author of thirty books to date, including his eleventh non-fiction work, The Complete Muhammad Ali (Baraka Books, July, 2015); his tenth novel, Juice! (2011); and New and Collected Poems, 1964-2007 (2007). His seventh play, The Final Version, premiered at New York’s Nuyorican Poets Café in December 2013; his other six plays are collected in Ishmael Reed, THE PLAYS (2009). In addition he has edited numerous magazines and fourteen anthologies, of which the most recent is Black Hollywood Unchained (2015). He is also a publisher, songwriter, public media commentator, lecturer, and founder of the Before Columbus Foundation and PEN Oakland, non-profit organizations run by writers for writers. After teaching at the University of California, Berkeley for over thirty years, he retired in 2005 and now teaches at California College of the Arts. He is a MacArthur Fellow, with other honors including the University of Buffalo’s 2014 Distinguished Alumni Award, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize nominations, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Award, and San Francisco LitQuake’s 2011 Barbary Coast Award. Awarded the 2008 Blues Songwriter of the Year from the West Coast Blues Hall of Fame, his collaborations with jazz musicians for the past forty years were also recognized by SFJazz Center with his appointment, from 2012-2016, as San Francisco’s first Jazz Poet Laureate and in Venice, Italy, where he became the first Alberto Dubito International awardee , May, 2016, honored as “a special artistic individual who has distinguished himself through the most innovative creativity in the musical and linguistic languages.” His online international literary magazine, Konch, can be found at ishmaelreedpub.com.

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