"beware : do not read this poem" - Ishmael Reed
Ishmael Reed
(1932-) is an American poet, playwright, novelist, and editor who is best known
for his works satirizing American culture. He often tried to represent the
perspective of neglected and oppressed African Americans, and the perspective
of the neglected in general.
"beware : do not read this poem"
tonite
, thriller was
abt an old woman
, so vain she
surrounded herself w /
many
mirrors
it got so bad that finally she
locked herself indoors & her
whole life became the
mirrors
one day the villagers broke
into her house
, but she was too
swift for them
. she disappeared
into a
mirror
each tenant who bought the house
after that
, lost a loved one to
the old
woman in the mirror:
first a
little girl
then a
young woman
then the
young woman / s husband
the hunger of this poem is legendary
it has taken in many victims
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr legs
back off from this poem
it is a greedy mirror
you are into this poem .
from
the
waist down
nobody can hear you can they ?
this poem has had you up to here
belch
this poem aint got no manners
you cant call out from this poem
relax now & go w / this poem
move & roll on to this poem
do not resist this poem
this poem has your eyes
this poem has his head
this poem has his arms
this poem has his fingers
this poem has his fingertips
this poem is the reader & the
reader the poem
statistic
: the US bureau of missing
persons reports
that
in 1968 over 100,000 people disappeared leaving no solid clues
nor trace
only
a space in the lives of their friends
This poem
seems to b a beast
, in it -/ self . It relies mostly upon the structures of
rhyme and stanza, or rather lack of, to portray itself as a primitive and
deadly force with which to be reckoned. The first and second stanzas are
fractal and broken in nature. The large amount of space between each
punctuation mark and the next word breaks up the stanza and forces the reader
to pause at each break and consider the idea of loss. In this way it causes uneasiness,
mimicking the speech of a primitive beast trying to communicate. It also
illustrates the panicked mindset of someone of someone who cannot think
cohesively, having to confront the beast. The constant enjambment, in addition
to works missing vowels (ex. “abt” for about), further distort the stanza, mimicking
the incomplete thoughts a mindless monster would piece together in an attempt
to form a full thought. Also, any mention of the mirrors or of anyone absorbed
into one is indented. This slight shift represents the surreal and supernatural
nature of the mirrors, signaling that total immersion in anything, including
poetry, can cause an isolation depriving one’s self of the real world. When the
poem does begin to organize lines in a standard fashion, it only issues
warnings. The fact that these warnings are issued in relatively solid stanzas
with almost no enjambment makes the message more cohesive and therefore stronger
and more forceful, as if it has power over the reader. The repetition of
multiple lines, such as “back off from this poem” and the alliteration present
in the often repeated line “This poem has your [body part]” quicken the pace
the reader reads at, increasing the urgency and panic felt. The final stanza
form is entirely different from that of the rest of the poem, adding to the
discord the poem displays. It names a statistic, mentioning that the
disappearing people leave behind “only a space” such as the large pages
breaking up the stanza. This mention of spaces relates back to the entire poem,
and warns against self absorption as it can be a monster preventing one form participating
in the human race, just as the mirrors and the poem suck in people.
