Amiri Baraka

The American Dissident
A Literary Journal of Critical Creative Writing
In the Samizdat Tradition of Writing against the Machine
A Forum for Examining the Dark Side of the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex

Critical Reviews

Tales of the Out & the Gone (Short Stories by Amiri Baraka) For other reviews, consult BookReviews.

Akashic Books. New York. 2007. 221 pp. ISBN 13: 978-1-933354-12-5. $14.95.

Oh, the ravages of fame! Baraka seems to have fallen victim. In his introduction to this collection, he has the podium, yet writes of “tales,” the historicity of “tales,” the meaning of “tales,” while citing Mao and Sartre, and ignoring the millions slaughtered by the former and millions ignored in the gulags by the latter, including scores of poets. Diehard in the mire of orthodoxy? Perhaps. Baraka seems proud to call himself “The Last Poet Laureate of New Jersey.” Is it not odd how those who ascend to such positions and titles become blind to what they signify? To be designated poet laureate of New Jersey or any other state is to be designated friend of the established-order literary milieu and its intrinsic corruption of rampant hyperbole, backslapping, self-congratulating, cronyism, bombastic blurbing, self-serving mythification, and self-promotion uber alles. The same goes for Baraka’s induction into the established-order American Academy of Arts & Letters.

Well, let’s examine the tales. For the most part, they are quite difficult to follow—discombobulated at best. Despite trying my best, I could not appreciate any of them. Sure, the bebop feel of jazz seems to be present, but most of these tales don’t seem to say anything at all. What is Baraka trying to tell us? What is his message? After finishing most of these tales (most about 2-4 pages), I’d wonder what the hell they were about. Unfortunately, I did not have any desire to reread any of them in effort to find out. In its very innocuousness, if not senselessness, much of the writing in this book could be deemed corporate friendly, hardly “radical truths” at all. “So the story wants to make sense,” writes Baraka in a piece attempting to define what a story is. Now, if only he could focus on that piece of wisdom.

Baraka does not know the meaning or importance of a hook sentence. He gets lost in vocabulary and, now and then, makes nonsensical statements if only for the rhyme. “But the griot carried olds as news for old news, old knews, all knews.” Et alors? And how much of that kind of prose can an intelligent person stand reading? “Yeh, I turned into some Sun Ra and hung out inside gravity. You probably heard of the scatting comet. Babs was into that.” Now what was that tale about? “Rhythm Travel.” Ah, I see.

Perhaps this book might be of interest for a college dissecting class in, not biology, but Creative Writing. Otherwise, I cannot see the interest in it at all. It brings no real wisdom at all in forme or fond. “Evolution is the going to the going, where the speed of light is the measure, whereby faster than that which ‘disappears’ from this eye. The five senses are the truncated perception of the animal.” Maybe this kind of prose would be of interest if stoned out of ones mind listening to Baraka recite it in a background of Coltrane. Bukowski once stated: “Most poets can’t even write a simple line like the dog walked down the street.” Well, Baraka seems to fall into that category, at least with his prose.

Reading the hyperbolic blurbs, one would be tempted to think differently as in “a powerful, immensely gifted writer” according to Chicago Sun-Times and “the energy is unremitting, the focus unwavering, the anger burning into a crystal rage” according to Chris Abani, award-winning Nigerian author. Yes, there is energy, but entirely unfocused. As for the purported “anger,” it was all but inexistent. Some of the jazz/prose in this book reminds of Kerouac’s unreadable, or at least incomprehensible, writing—the stuff they’ve recently taken out of the drawers and never should have published. But call it experimental, or better yet “literary adventurousness,” so Calvin Reid of Publisher’s Weekly can inflate it as “fierce fictions, radical truths” and “pointillistic.” But why would anyone want to praise this book? Cronyism? Fear of offending an icon of the Academy? Who knows?

Pointillisme needs to be kept in the realm of art and jazz in that of music, while clarity and wisdom belong in that of writing. For “America’s most provocative literary anti-hero,” according to the publisher, this “groundbreaking work” is highly disappointing. This reviewer cannot recommend it.

—The Editor