Brother B took off the Itamar mask
as we crossed over, epic duress lately
contracted let go, small mercy, less than
we’d been led to expect we now
clamored for, noise, no not knowing
what sound was… Noise no doubt, (More …)
Nathaniel Mackey is the author of six books of poetry, the most recent of which is Blue Fasa (New Directions, 2015); an ongoing prose work, From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate, whose fourth and most recent volume is Bass Cathedral (New Directions, 2008); and two books of criticism, the most recent of which is Paracritical Hinge: Essays, Talks, Notes, Interviews (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). Strick: Song of the Andoumboulou 16-25, a compact disc recording of poems read with musical accompaniment (Royal Hartigan, percussion; Hafez Modirzadeh, reeds and flutes), was released in 1995 by Spoken Engine Company. He is the editor of the literary magazine Hambone and coeditor, with Art Lange, of the anthology Moment's Notice: Jazz in Poetry and Prose (Coffee House Press, 1993). His awards and honors include the National Book Award for poetry, the Stephen Henderson Award from the African American Literature and Culture Society, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and the Bollingen Prize for American Poetry. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, and teaches at Duke University.
Brother B took off the Itamar mask
as we crossed over, epic duress lately
contracted let go, small mercy, less than
we’d been led to expect we now
clamored for, noise, no not knowing
what sound was… Noise no doubt, (More …)