“What any experimental art is trying to get you to do is move beyond your preconceptions and your expectations regarding what should be happening, what’s going to happen, what kinds of effects it should have, and enter a liminal state in which those things can be redefined in the way that the particular artist or piece of art is proposing.”
Nathaniel Mackey
—“mu” one hundred thirty-fourth part—
An Excerpt
by Nathaniel Mackey
Let myself be leaned on though I did, linger
though I did, I heard enough hearing he died
when Terremoto died . . . So it was I plugged
my
ears with strum. Had I listened I’d have la-
mented my lost body. I leaned against his lean-
ing, lent my support . . . Propped up in my
own
right, I wondered what I leaned on. A shade
he might’ve been, soul serenade the song he
sang,
soul, it seemed, a fund
of unrest
There is something fundamentally contradictory in trying to include Nathaniel Mackey’s long form poetry into the style of this blog – Fourteenlines. As a master of Jazz poetry and spoken word poetry, Mackey deserves to be included in this months collection, but excerpts simply don’t do his work justice. I would encourage you to read more of his work in its original form if these snippets strike your fancy. Mackey is known for his embrace of long form poetry to share a deeper narrative about his own and our collective journey as human beings.
There are two words that Mackey frequently uses in his poetry; antiphon and andoumboulou. Antiphon means; a verse or song to be chanted or sung in response, like a psalm, hymn or prayer sung in alternate parts. Andoumboulou, from West African Dogon mythology, means “a rough draft of human being, the work-in-progress we continue to be.”
Chanting is common place as a form of shared worship in many religions of the world, but has become seen as a bit old fashioned in many Protestant congregations. It’s a shame that chanting has faded from popularity. Frederick Buechner, a noted theologian, says that group chanting can reconnect words to meaning. He wrote on a recent blog: “when a prayer or a psalm or a passage is chanted, we hear the words again. We hear them in a new way. We remember that they are not only meaning, but music and mystery. The chanting italicizes them. The prose becomes poetry. The prosaic becomes powerful.”
If you would like to learn more, I recommend the short video below, its a great way to learn about Nathaniel Mackey’s approach to his art and life.
On Antiphon Island
by Nathaniel Mackey
—“mu” twenty-eighth part—
On Antiphon Island they lowered
the bar and we bent back. It
wasn’t limbo we were in albeit
we limbo’d. Everywhere we
went we
limbo’d, legs bent, shoulder
blades grazing the dirt,
donned
andoumboulouous birth-shirts,
sweat salting the silence
we broke… Limbo’d so low we
fell and lay looking up at
the clouds, backs embraced by
the
ground and the ground a fallen
wall
we were ambushed by… Later we’d
sit, sipping the fig liqueur, beckoning
sleep, soon-come somnolence nowhere
come as yet. Where we were, not-
withstanding, wasn’t there…
Where we
were was the hold of a ship we were
caught
in. Soaked wood kept us afloat… It
wasn’t limbo we were in albeit we
limbo’d our way there. Where we
were was what we meant by “mu.”
Where
we were was real, reminiscent
arrest we resisted, bodies briefly
had,
held on
to
•
“A Likkle Sonance” it said on the
record. A trickle of blood hung
overhead I heard it spurts. An
introvert trumpet run, trickle of
sound…
A trickle of water lit by the sun
I saw with an injured eye, captive
music ran our legs and we danced…
Knees
bent, asses all but on the floor, love’s
bittersweet largesse… I wanted
trickle turned into flow, flood,
two made one by music, bodied
edge
gone up into air, aura, atmosphere
the garment we wore. We were on
a ship’s deck dancing, drawn in a
dream
above hold… The world was ever after,
elsewhere.
Where we were they said likkle for little, lick
ran with trickle, weird what we took it
for… The world was ever after, elsewhere,
no
way where we were
was there
Fourteen Lines 