Passwords: Erica Hunt on Nathaniel Mackey

Nathaniel Mackey is a distinctive figure in contemporary American literature whose work bridges worlds compassing poetry, jazz, mythology and history. His poetry books Eroding Witness, School of Udhra, and Whatsaid Serif blend lyric and scat, metaphysics and myth. Bedouin Hornbook and Djbot Baghostus’s Run, novels in correspondence form, mine the territory of jazz aesthetics, poetry and performance. Erica Hunt will focus on the counterpoint Mackey’s poetry and prose create together, a “multiphasic” and unified body of work that maps a multicultural stream in American life.