SOURCE: Mackey, Nathaniel, Peter O'Leary, and Devin Johnston. “An Interview with Nathaniel Mackey.” Chicago Review 43, no. 1 (winter 1997): 30-46.

In the following interview, which was conducted on Saturday, May 18, 1996, Mackey speaks with O'Leary and Johnston about his work.

Born in Miami in 1947, Nathaniel Mackey grew up in Southern California. He attended Princeton and then Stanford, where he earned a Ph.D. in literature. In the late 1970s, after having taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and USC, Mackey joined the faculty of UC-Santa Cruz, where he works today. His first poetry publications were chapbooks, all of which were eventually collected in Eroding Witness, published in 1985.¹ In this book, Mackey introduced the two poetic series that he has since continued to expand: “Song of the Andoumboulou” (number 31 of which appeared in CR 41:4) and “mu.” Bedouin Hornbook followed in 1986. This was the first installment of Mackey's serial fiction, From a Broken...