| Description |
xvi, 126 pages ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
I. Braid. Andoumboulouous brush -- Beginning with lines by Anwar Naguib -- "He and she sat stacked row on..." -- "Manipulable hope turned endless..." -- Spectral escort -- Lag anthem -- "Newly arrived. Arrayed in..." -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 40 -- "Dark wintry room they lay shivering..." -- Eye on the scarecrow -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 42 -- "So that B'Head called hard rock pillow',..." -- "Premature rebirth, fake book of the..." -- Go left out of Shantiville -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 44 -- "A region of hills it was we came..." -- "Others called it namesake serenade,..." -- "A thorn caught in the horn's..." -- "It was a night nowhere near where..." -- Glenn on Monk's Mountain -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 46 -- "Prodigal rift an aroused we tossed..." -- (brayed) -- "It was a tale told many times over,..." -- II. Fray. Sound and Semblance -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 48 -- "B'Hest had hold of us, no..." -- "Sat elbows-to-knees on the sidewalk,..." -- "Udhrite arrest echoed Udhrite..." -- On Antiphon Island -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 50 -- "Tore the earth and tore the air..." -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 51 -- "And so withstood it. Stood, insofar as..." -- "To ride was a well gone to too often, a..." -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 52 -- "Lift and being lowered he meant by..." -- "Brusque encumbrance unaccounted..." -- Sound and sentience -- Sigh of the moor -- "Sought their shadows in heaven,..." -- "It wasn't that all things pass,..." -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 55 -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 56 -- "Dried up if so much as looked at, dreamtime..." -- "Abstract canvas, earth tones notwithstanding...." -- "A worked awkwardness ran us over. 'We...'" -- Dread lakes aperture -- "On a lit canvas what could've been..." -- III. Nub. Song of the Andoumboulou: 58 -- "Wrung water from a sawed-off branch,..." -- "What of us wouldn't carry caught..." -- Sound and cerement -- "It was getting to be the end again,..." -- Song of the Andoumboulou: 60 -- "A first unfallen church of what might've..." --"Nub no longer stood but lay and we...". |
| Summary |
Published in installments across several decades, Mackey's two epic series--one called Mu, the other Song of the Andoumboulou--bring the attitudes of free jazz and the reverberating patterns of West African ensemble music to the goals of the American encyclopedic long poem รก la Charles Olson. The mysterious, even hermetic, new verse extends both of Mackey's epics, even (as his prose foreword explains) merging them, so that they form one enormous text describing a mystical quest. Mackey's figures seek the source of inspiration, and his dense stanzas track their uneven progress; "We" pursue it, by foot, train or boat, into realms of fable and myth, via chants, archival and esoteric references, portmanteau words and archeological research. |
| Awards |
National Book Award winner, Poetry , 2006. |
| Subject |
Poetry.
|
|
Epic poetry, American.
|
|
National Book Awards.
|
| ISBN |
0811216527 paperback alkaline paper $15.95 |
|
9780811216524 paperback alkaline paper $15.95 |
|
