“A Group Interview with Nathaniel Mackey,” Nathaniel Mackey, Duke University

Nathaniel Mackey, winner of the National Book Award for poetry and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement, will discuss his work with a small panel of Penn State scholars. After a brief introduction to Mackey’s work by a Penn State faculty member, the panel will interview Mackey about his “discrepant engagements” as an author, editor, professor, and radio DJ. Following the interview, the panel will open the floor to questions from the audience. This event should be of interest to those seeking an introduction to Mackey’s writing as well as to those already familiar with it. It will also precede Professor Mackey’s second engagement at Penn State: a poetry reading on the evening of Tuesday, April 14, in the Palmer Lipcon Auditorium.

Nathaniel Mackey works in the areas of modern and postmodern literature in the U.S. and the Caribbean, creative writing, poetry and poetics, and the intersection of literature and music. He is the author of several books of poetry, fiction and criticism, most recently Nod House (New Directions, 2011), Bass Cathedral (New Directions, 2008), and Paracritical Hinge: Essays, Talks, Notes, Interviews (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), respectively. 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 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).