Nathaniel Mackey facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Nathaniel Mackey
Nathaniel Mackey, photo by Gloria Graham during the video taping of Add-Verse, 2005
Born	1947 Miami, Florida, United States
Alma mater	Princeton University; Stanford University
Genre	Poetry

Nathaniel Mackey is an important American poet, novelist, and literary critic. He also works as an editor. He teaches creative writing at Duke University. He is also a Chancellor for The Academy of American Poets. Mr. Mackey teaches a poetry class at Duke University.

He has been the editor of a magazine called Hambone since 1982. He won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2006. In 2014, he received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. The next year, in 2015, he won Yale's Bollingen Prize for American Poetry.

About Nathaniel Mackey

Nathaniel Mackey was born in 1947 in Miami, Florida. When he was three, his parents separated, and he moved to California. As a teenager, he started listening to jazz music. His brother suggested it, and jazz later became a big influence on his writing.

College Life and Early Career

As a high school student, he visited Princeton University. He saw live jazz in New York City during this trip. This experience helped him decide to attend Princeton. After earning his bachelor's degree, he went back to Southern California. He taught algebra at a junior high school there.

In 1970, Mackey began his doctorate at Stanford University. His studies focused on a group of poets called the Black Mountain poets. He explored how they used the natural rhythms of human breath in their poetry. After finishing his degree, he taught at the University of Wisconsin. He also taught at the University of Southern California. In 1979, he joined the literature department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He stayed there until 2010. Then, he and his family moved to North Carolina. He took a new job at Duke University.

Nathaniel Mackey's Poetry

Mackey has written many books of poetry. Some of his early works include Four for Trane (1978) and Septet for the End of Time (1983). Later books are Eroding Witness (1985) and School of Udhra (1993). He also wrote Whatsaid Serif (1998) and Splay Anthem (2006). More recent collections include Nod House (2011) and Blue Fasa (2016).

In 2021, three of his books were published together. These were Tej Bet, So's Notice, and Nerve Church. They came out as a special boxed set called Double Trio. In 2016, a collection named Lay Ghost was released. It featured songs that later appeared in So's Notice.

Mackey's poetry mixes different ideas. He uses African mythology and African-American musical traditions. He also experiments with modern poetry styles. His ongoing poetry projects are "Song of the Andoumboulou" and "Mu". These projects explore how poetry connects to history and memory. They also look at the differences between his American life and cultures from Africa and the Middle East.

Nathaniel Mackey's Novels

Mackey has written five books in a series called From A Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate. These books are Bedouin Hornbook (1986), Djbot Baghostus's Run (1993), and Atet A. D. (2001). The series also includes Bass Cathedral (2008) and Late Arcade (2017).

The first book, Bedouin Hornbook, was inspired by a unique experience. Mackey once saw a jazz band play, and he was the only person in the audience. This book is a series of letters. In these letters, he writes about what it might be like to play in such a band.

Personal Life

While at Stanford, Mackey met Gloria Jean Watkins, also known as bell hooks. They dated until the mid-1980s. In 1991, he married Pascale Gaitet. She is an expert in French literature. Nathaniel and Pascale have three children: Naima, Gabriella, and Ian.

Awards and Honors

Nathaniel Mackey has received many awards for his writing:

• 1993 Whiting Award
• 2006 National Book Award for Poetry, for his book Splay Anthem
• 2007 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award
• 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2014 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
• 2015 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry
• 2016 Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry for Lifetime Achievement