The speaker Ishmael Reed's title, "Poet As Prophet and Oracle" for his lecture on Sunday sounds interesting for students who like literature. Ishmael Reed is considered as a prophet as oracle because his writing demonstrates that he is a great improviser. He has the ability to divergent materials into forms of surprise, revelation, and frequent hilarity. However, people who focus primarily on how funny or unfunny his works are missing the point of his humor …showed first 75 words of 563 total…

…showed last 75 words of 563 total…to fully comprehend the depth and complexity of that heritage, including its inventiveness, hilarious undercurrents, and seasoned extravagances. Ishmael Reed, in short, uses tradition to illuminate and reinvigorate tradition, combining continuity and improvisation in a cultural dynamic that Amiri Baraka has astutely dubbed the changing same." (Internet last paragraph) Worked Cited Ishmael Reed. "About Reed's Life and Work." Reed Life and Work. http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/reed/about.htm (15 Feb.2004)