TALES OF THE OUT AND THE GONE

A grab-bag of pieces from the long-time poet, critic and provocateur, drawing inspiration from tall tales, sci-fi, Beat poetry and wild abstraction.

For better or worse, Baraka is now best known for voicing anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories in his poem “Somebody Blew Up America,” delivered while he was New Jersey’s poet laureate. This collection, drawn mostly from Baraka’s work over the past two decades, goes a long way toward reminding readers of the breadth of his talents—his prose bears by turns the influence of Ray Bradbury, John Coltrane and ’60s leftist tracts. But though his writing is colorful and overflowing with ideas, the stories collected here often feel maddeningly unfinished or didactic. The 1975 story “Neo-American,” which follows the black mayor of a New Jersey town on the day of the president’s visit, makes some obvious points about power’s corrupting influence and the disconnect between black leaders and the communities they serve. “What Is Undug Will Be” is that story’s near-polar opposite, an act of automatic writing that seems divorced from logic. (“It wasn’t just I, but I & I, but you was only half of you.”) But he also offers a few laughs (and shrewd observations about race) in a handful of brief stories describing a man’s out-there inventions—a device that takes you to wherever a song of your choice is playing, a ray gun that clothes you in whatever you imagine and a “pig detector” that identifies nearby cops. And he’s a solid craftsman of more conventional works like “Mondongo,” about two Air Force buddies on an ill-fated hunt for prostitutes in Puerto Rico, and “Norman’s Date,” a story that originally appeared in Playboy, about a one-night-stand gone wrong. Elsewhere, though, he dismisses the latter piece as a potboiler; for Baraka, telling the story straight is a rare (and suspect) tactic.

A perfect encapsulation of a sui generis writer—work that is often as frustrating as it is enlightening.