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M

Mackey, Nathaniel (1947– )
Born in Miami and raised in Southern California,
Mackey attended Princeton, then Stanford, where
he earned a Ph.D. in literature. He then taught
briefly at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
and the University of Southern California, before
he found a teaching position at the University of
California at Santa Cruz. During his tenure as a
student, Mackey was introduced not only to the
poets of the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, such as AMIRI
BARAKA, but also to the Black Mountain poets,
such as Charles Olson and Robert Creeley. Pulling
on these different sources has allowed Mackey to
continue to draw from a wide array of influences
to create a writing style and form that reflects the
postmodern and global culture he seems to know
so well and embrace. The themes expressed in
his work are taken from African and Caribbean
folklore, European poetics, and African-American
music, particularly jazz. In summary, Mackey’s
work defies the notion that an African American
should only be interested in African-American lit-
erature and culture.
Mackey’s versatility is reflected in his body of
work. He is a poet, novelist, writer of cultural and
literary criticism, and accomplished editor. His
first publications were poetry chapbooks, all of
which were eventually collected in Eroding Wit-
ness (1985). In this collection, Mackey introduces
two poetic series that he has since continued to

expand: “Song of the Andoumboulou” and “mu”

(a title taken from trumpeter Don Cherry’s same-

named series). School of Udhra (1993) and What-

said Serif (1998) are further offerings of Mackey’s

poetry and continue the two series.

Attempting to move beyond the written word,

Mackey has released Strick: Song of the Andoum-

boulou 16–25 (1995), a compact disc recording

of poems read with musical accompaniment

by Royal Hartigan and Hafez Modiradeh. He is

also the author of an ongoing prose composi-

tion, From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still

Emanate, of which three volumes have been pub-

lished: Bedoin Hornbook (1986), Djbot Baghostus’s

Run (1993), and Atet A.D. (2001). Beyond his ca-

reer in poetry and fiction, he has published two

books of literary criticism, Gassire’s Lute: Robert

Duncan’s Vietnam War Poems (published in five

installments from 1990 to 1992) and Discrepant

Engagement: Dissonance, Cross-Culturality, and

Experimental Writing (1993). He edited, with Art

Lange, the anthology Moment’s Notice: Jazz in

Poetry and Prose (1993) and founded the literary

magazine Hambone.

This variation of work represents Mackey’s ef-

fort to communicate the slippage between these

forms and, consequently, to explore their inter-

connectedness. Mackey believes that the lore and

history he draws from is not fixed. Instead, he sees

lore and history as “active and unfinished” tradi-