Nathaniel Mackey was born in Miami, Florida, in 1947, and grew up, from age four, in California. He is the author of five chapbooks of poetry, including Outlantish (Chax Press, 1992), and Four for Glenn (Chax Press, 2002); five books of poetry, includingEroding Witness (University of Illinois Press, 1985), and Splay Anthem (New Directions, 2006); and an ongoing prose work, From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate, of which four volumes have been published: Bedouin Hornbook (Callaloo Fiction Series, 1986; second edition: Sun & Moon Press, 1997), Djbot Baghostus’s Run(Sun & Moon Press, 1993), Atet A.D. (City Lights Books, 2001), and Bass Cathedral(New Directions, 2008). He is also the editor of the literary magazine Hambone and coeditor, with Art Lange, of the anthologyMoment’s Notice: Jazz in Poetry and Prose(Coffee House Press, 1993). His awards and honors include the selection of Eroding Witness for publication in the National Poetry Series, a Whiting Writer’s Award in 1993, election to the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets in 2001, the National Book Award for Splay Anthemin 2006, an Artist’s Grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2007, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010, and The Bollingen Prize in 2015. He lives in Durham, North Carolina, and teaches at Duke University, where he is the Reynolds Price Professor of English.
Nathaniel Mackey
