In this first book of essays devoted entirely to Nathaniel Mackey鈥檚 work, prominent critics respond to a major oeuvre that is at once affirmative and utopic, negational and dystopic. Drawing on multiple genealogies and traditions, primarily from African and African diaspora histories and cultures, Mackey鈥檚 work envisions cultural creation as cross-cultural, based in the damaging relationships of Africans brought against their will to the Americas and the resulting innovations of New World African literatures and music.
This collection is organized through broad topics in order to provide entrances into his challenging work: myth, literature, and seriality; music, performance, and collaboration; syncretism, synopsis, and what-saying. It engages Mackey鈥檚 spiritual and esoteric disposition along with his attention to what Amiri Baraka called the 鈥渆nraged sociologies鈥 of Black music. In his manifesto 鈥淒estination Out,鈥 Mackey describes his work as 鈥渨anting to bid all givens goodbye鈥 and as 鈥渃entrifugal.鈥 It is also centripetal, manifesting a reflexive interiority that creates itself through recurring forms.
鈥淭his deeply thoughtful collection of essays on the greater master of letters and philosopher Nathaniel Mackey and his wide-ranging presentation of himself as writer, thinker, artist, metaphysician, and mentor is long overdue. Rigorous, dense, heartfelt, and attentive; after this important book there will assuredly be many more considerations of Mackey鈥檚 extraordinary significance to come.鈥濃擳racie Morris, author, Who Do With Words
鈥淔ocusing on Mackey鈥檚 fiction, poetry, and cultural and literary writings, the critics in this volume explore his overarching concerns, such as fugitivity, erosion, and mythology. Well-aware of the intentional slippage in Mackey鈥檚 ideas, the contributors patiently trace their development. This excellent collection helps us come to terms with a challenging, complex, and major avant-garde figure.鈥濃擶illiam J. Harris, editor, The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader
鈥淔or four decades, Nathaniel Mackey has shaped an imaginative world at an oblique angle to what counts as social reality in urban America. He has insisted on intellectual independence and a style based on the sounds of syllables. Here is the first collection of essays on one of the most distinctive U.S. poets of our era鈥攙ery welcome, this book!鈥濃擱obert von Hallberg, author, Lyric Powers
鈥. . . this edited collection thematizes the beautiful difficulty of doing justice to the scale, scope, and intricacy of Mackey鈥檚 lifelong, ongoing masterwork. . . . the volume illuminates Mackey鈥檚 defining ambitions of open-ended myth creation and poetic spiritual discovery as it traces some of the poet鈥檚 most important esoteric allusions and characteristic techniques. . . . an admirable means to follow Mackey on his journey 鈥榦ut.鈥欌濃ALH Online Review
Maria Damon, Joseph Donahue, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Norman Finkelstein, Luke Harley, Paul Jaussen, Adalaide Morris, Fred Moten, Peter O鈥橪eary, Anthony Reed
