City Beautiful (Ishmael Reed Publishing Company) [Paperback]

Introduction for Tennessee Reed's appearance at the WordTemple Poetry Series Santa Rosa, California February 9, 2007

When asked, I've told people that I began writing poetry as a young girl; that I would sew my poems into small books with colored yarn and then stash them under my bed. When I left home as an adult at age 17, I threw the poems away. So right away, I'm jealous of Tennessee Reed. She kept her poems.

Tennessee Reed has written five books of poetry since she first began writing at five-years old including Circus in the Sky, written when she was 11-years old, Electric Chocolate, written between the ages of 11 and 13, Airborne, written from ages 13 to 19, and two books that are combined in the book she has here tonight, , City Beautiful and Animals & Others. These poems were written from her junior year in college into 2006.

Composers Meredith Monk and Carman Moore set Tennessee Reed's poetry to music for "Face the Music," a live performance work by The Children's Troupe of Roberts + Blank that premiered in Oakland's East Bay Dance Festival. Ms. Reed has given poetry readings from the Netherlands to Japan, from Germany to Hawaii, and throughout the United States. She is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley and Mills College.

Tennessee Reed's poems often appear to be just straight-out narrative reporting. This is what I saw. This is what I heard. But when you put those experiences together, a new unsaid experience is created; this is where the magic happens. The gold leafed dome of a city hall + homeless human beings equals what? Two news anchors dubbed "Barbie" and "Ken" give warnings about "American black bears." On the surface, it all seems innocent enough. But read the quote by the park ranger and you'll know this poem has a lot more to say than something about hungry, delinquent bears in Yosemite and, indeed, about the media machine itself.

By the time you finish reading City Beautiful, you come away feeling close, somehow, to Tennessee Reed, she has shared so much about herself and how she sees, hears and investigates this world. There is no hesitation. The opening poem of City Beautiful, "Choosing Sides," lets us in immediately, and there we stay.

Please welcome Tennessee Reed.

-- Katherine Hastings

Her poetry has also appeared in the San Francisco Examiner, Quilt magazine, the California State Library Foundation Bulletin, Poetry USA #25 & #26, The Raven Chronicles, Konch magazine, and in the anthology From Totems to Hip Hop edited by Ishmael Reed (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003). Her essay, "Being Mixed in America," appears in MultiAmerica: Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace edited by Ishmael Reed (Viking, 1997) and in The Baltimore Sun. Currently, she is working on a non-fiction memoir entitled Spell Albuquerque. An excerpt was published in June 2002, on the Internet web site of the National Council of Teachers of English. She also has two children's books in manuscript, The Troll and the Magical Music Box and The Land of Una.

Tennessee Reed has given poetry readings on the East and West Coasts of the United States, Alaska, Hawaii, England, the Netherlands, Germany and Japan. In 1994, she became the youngest person presented by the United States Information Agency's Arts America Program, reading her poetry in Bonn and Berlin, Germany. Composer Meredith Monk and her ensemble performed the NYC premiere of "Three Heavens and Hells," a twenty-minute a cappella work for four female voices with text by Tennessee Reed, at Merkin Hall, December 4-5, 1993. Ms. Monk has continued to perform the work throughout the U.S. and Europe, and recorded it on "Volcano Songs" (ECM New Series CD, 1997). Its world premiere, at the 1992 Bay Area Dance Series, was part of Face the Music, a live video performance work by The Children's Troupe of Roberts and Blank. Composer Carman Moore set another of her poems, "Old Parents Blues," to music for the same event. Tennessee Reed was a performer in The Children's Troupe from 1985-1992.

Tennessee Reed is currently a resident of Oakland, California, and is Secretary of Oakland PEN. She is a graduate of U.C., Berkeley, where she received her B.A. in American Studies in 2001, and Mills College, where she received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing in 2005.