If you are looking for a
specific book or author, use one of the search engines at the bottom of all the AALBC.com
web pages.
Winner of the 2006 National Book Award for Poetry
Splay Anthem
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 0811216527
Pub. Date: May 2006
Format: Paperback, 112pp
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Book Description
In a stunning new collection of poems of transport and transcendence,
African-American poet Nathaniel Mackey's "asthmatic song of aspiration"
scuttles across cultures and histories�from America to Andaluc�a, from
Ethiopia to Vienna�in a sexy, beautiful adaptive dance.
Part antiphonal rant, part rhythmic whisper, Nathaniel Mackey's new
collection of poems, Splay Anthem, takes the reader to uncharted
poetic spaces. Divided into three sections�"Braid," "Fray," and "Nub" (one
referent Mackey notes in his stellar Introduction: "the imperial, flailing
republic of Nub the United States has become, the shrunken place the earth
has become, planet Nub")�Splay Anthem weaves together two ongoing
serial poems Mackey has been writing for over twenty years, Song of the
Andoumboulou and "Mu" (though "mu no more itself / than
Andoumboulou").
In the cosmology of the Dogon of West Africa, the Andoumboulou are
progenitor spirits, and the song of the Andoumboulou is a song addressed to
the spirits, a funeral song, a song of rebirth. "Mu," too, splays
with meaning: muni bird, Greek muthos, a Sun Ra tune, a
continent once thought to have existed in the Pacific. With the vibrancy of
a Mir� painting, Mackey's poems trace the lost tribe of "we" through waking
and dreamtime, through a multitude of geographies, cultures, histories, and
musical traditions, as poetry here serves as the intersection of everything,
myth's music, spirit lift.
About the Author
Nathaniel Mackey was born in Miami, Florida
in 1947, and grew up in California. He is the recipient of many awards and
honors, including a Whiting Writer's Award in 1993 and election to the Board
of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets in 2001. His work has been
widely anthologized, and he is the author of several books of poetry,
fiction, and criticism. He edits the literary journal Hambone and
co-edited the anthology Moment's Notice: Jazz in Poetry and Prose. A
recording of his poems read with musical accompaniment was released in 1995�Strick
(Spoken Engine Co.). Mackey is currently Professor of Literature at the
University of California, Santa Cruz
|
AALBC Black Arts Movement Section
Glossary of Poetic Terms
Please send requests to have a poetry related links added to this page by emailing the AALBC at poets@aalbc.com |
AALBC.com's -
Virtual Poetry Reading
Listen to poets read sample of their work on-line!
AALBC.com's
Poet's
Discussion Board
Participate in our on-line discussion founded by Poetess Sister Shiree Sarana
