Eroding Witness

by Nathaniel Mackey

Poetry. African American Studies. Back in stock in limited quantities. "Eroding Witness" was selected by Michael S. Harper as one of five volumes published in 1985 in the National Poetry Series. "I wake up mumbling, I'm / not at the music's / mercy think damned / if I'm not, but / keep the thought / to myself" ("Capricorn Rising"). Nathaniel Mackey, a native of Miami, Florida, currently teaches at UC Santa Cruz. He edits the magazine Hambone which is available from SPD. Many other publications by Mackey are also available from SPD, including Whatsaid Serif (City Lights), Djbot Baghostus's Run (Sun & Moon) and the CD Strick: Song of Andoumboulou 16-25 (Spoken Engine).

Genres: Poetry

99 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Poet and novelist Nathaniel Mackey was born in 1947 in Miami, Florida. He received a BA degree from Princeton University and a PhD from Stanford University.

Nathaniel Mackey has received numerous awards including a Whiting Writer’s Award and a 2010 Guggenheim fellowship. He is the Reynolds Price Professor of English at Duke University and served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007. Mackey currently lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Reviews

[Alex]

One of Nathaniel Mackey’s earliest books of poetry, Eroding Witness begins what seems to be perhaps a lifelong exploration of some of Mackeys central themes. In the brief preface to the work, Michael Harper, remarks how Mackey’s poems are about “prophecy and initiation…but don’t explain…are the sounds of a mythmaker in the midst of a ceremonial talk,” a sentiment that could be held true for much of his work. The beginning poems of Eroding Witness are characterized perhaps most easily by both their brevity and disjointedness. It is common for Mackey to begin a thought, or sentence, in one stanza and then continue it into the next, breaking mid-thought it would seem before almost twisting it into something entirely different. An example:
tongues. And
where the bones,
what it was
they’d be, refused (14)

This style of almost a chopped-up stream of consciousness continues until the “Ghede Poem” which not only has less choppy line breaks but more of a rhythmic flow as a whole. There are songs of the Andoumbolou, which Mackey seems to attempt to use as a commentary on the creations of myths, or oral tradition. There are epistolaries within the songs such as in the 6th one when a mysterious character N writes to the Angel of Dust in regards to Song 3. As an early work of Mackey’s Eroding Witness certainly provides an introduction both to Mackey’s style as well as the complexity of the subjects he is yet to conquer.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Eroding Witness glows with the elemental light of 'secret things' from African ceremonial rituals and wisdom. A book of initiation and ancient prophecy, it reverberates with mythic and ancestral names - Osiris, Isis, Anubis, Ghede, the Andoumboulou, the Nommo, Ogotemmêli - spirits Mackey invokes in meditations on his own life and on the lives and work of John Coltrane, Jimi Hendrix, Don Cherry, and others...."
(from the back cover)

Secret Things...

1

They ask her
what she'd think
if what she
thought was rock

shook and
rumbled like
hunger, if
what moved inside

the rock was
not its
blood bu an
itch on their

tongue. And
where the bones,
what it was
they'd be, refused

its care love
quit its rattle,
while what
blood was in

the rock went
to their
heads (jeads wet
with voices),

each its own,
each as it
was (the way they
were), beside

themselves.


2

There was a
man it seems,
whispered himself
thru his

fingers, a
cloth between
her legs, the fabric
wet from her

inside, her
ragged crotch, who\
when she'd rise
would look him

down, or so
she'd say. And
this man, she says,
walks thru

her house, has
no clothes
on and carries
himself like her

Twin. Walks her
where when it
rains it not only
pours but

appears to be
sun. And burns like
salt the sand
does, and there

does a dance until
the sun cracks
her lips, the
cracks bleed. The

blood cooks,
drought lures
the "witch"
toward where the

bank they stand
on is. They
throw her in,
and that the river

wet her hair
predicted rain.
- The Shower of Secret Things, pg. 14-16

Osiris...

Spreading her night's

garment of stars' knotted

light, whose ragged

edges which are lips

impress a kiss upon

the world

(Dulled hammers, worked

as in a road of wet

cement, where in

the heat smells carry

like sound

But at the brim of her

cupped hands cures

come

out of trees recall Osiris

back to life between

her lips

(Bad clouds, out across the hills

to the west,

announce the wet

flash of Huracan's

thigh

- Outer Egypt, pg. 62

Jimi Hendrix...

A black tantric
snake I dream
two days to the

morning I die
slipping up
thru my throat,

slithers out
like the vomit I'll
be choked by

can't, gigantic
seven'headed
snake, sticks out

one head at a
time. Must
be this hiss my

guitar's been
rehearsing
sits me down by

where the salt
water crosses the
sweet. Self-

searching twitch,
the scrawny
light of its

carriage, broken
sealit stark-
ness, furtive

sea of regrets.
But not re-
duced by what

I knew would not
matter, woke
to see no one

caress the arisen
wonder's dreamt-of
thigh. Death

enters a slack
circle whispering,
slapping hands,

beauty baited
like a hook, hurt
muse at whose

feet whatever
fruit I'd give goes
abruptly bad.

Must be this
hiss my
guitar's

been rehearsing,
lizardquick
tongues like

they were
licking the sky.

Must be this
hiss my
guitar's been

rehearsing, these
lizardquick tongues
like they

were licking
the sky.

Down on my
knees testing
notes with

my teeth, always
knew a day'd
come I'd

put my wings out
and fly.
- Black Snake Visitation, for Jimi Hendrix pg. 19-21

[Steve Chisnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's rare that I come across a writer so abstracted that I can make little of what I am reading. Mackey has largely succeeded here, though, and I admit that my rating is part of my quandary of what to think about his largely-acclaimed poetry.

I admit, too, that a lot of stream-of-consciousness work, at its most raw, defies identification as open, conscious art or literature. Uniquely personal, heedless of coherence, a true stream of consciousness is unapologetic about its opacity. Fortunately for us, Mackey is not so dead to readership. Instead, we have what appears to be an incantation, a reverie, an invocation, of ancient gods and spirits--not all African, by the way--as they revisedly incarnate themselves today, sometimes through the work of musicians, sometimes in moments of solitude and despair.

Even so, while I can make my way fairly well through Joyce, or perhaps more appropriate here, the poetry of Fred Moten, Nathaniel Mackey's pages invite readers mostly to be carried along for the ride, regardless of comprehension. In some ways, the concept of "comprehension" itself is what is being challenged.

In one of the center sections, however, he offered me, at least, a bit of a liferaft, a letter written to one of his editors or commenters, in which we offers some hints about what he is up to, though even this, set in the book as itself a section of a larger poem, does not articulate the whole.

Mackey does have a coherence of themes or motifs, and it is clear he is in some ways conscious of maintaining their integrity even while calling upon his spirits--philosophies of gratuity, of worthiness, of appeal, all subtly wend their ways.

For some time in the reading, I was convinced that part of my problem was a basic unfamiliarity with enough African lore and tradition to give this poetry proper credence. And I still believe this is somewhat the case. But Mackey clearly is not so firmly rooted in black history for this to explain it, completely.

And I am unfortunately left to puzzle over what remains as I might at a modern art show or an obscure wine tasting, surrounded by those who at least make the noises of acclaim, whether or not they can enter Mackey's verse.

[Jared Levine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mackey begins here, with what becomes a lifelong esoteric journey of infamy and acclaim, but also strange obscurity too. Most of the time, I haven’t the slightest idea what he’s talking about, but still find myself drawn into his mystic pull, the occasional rhythmic incantation, and what to me, is a unique combination of words placed into a difficult syntax.

[Taylor Franson-Thiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 rounded up. I grew warm to the light of this book more as it went along. Definitely not for the faint of heart poetry. These poems are dreamscapes weaved with light and myth in equal measure.

[Kristina Gashi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dreamlike imagery and constant symbols of death, birth, and desire. Syntax was confusing at times but I enjoyed these poems and the expanse of African spirituality weaved throughout.

[Cone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not easy stuff, syntax is deliberate and sometimes difficult. References to various African religious symbols, deities, etc., abound. But I found this compelling, and exciting. Re-reading it, and anticipate reading Mackey's works, in order. He's a unique voice, dealing with unique material, and his ear is attuned to Jazz, esp. post-bop work. Others have remarked on the alliteration, which is perhaps the most obvious stylistic trait--it's certainly musical. I am reminded of Jay Wright, also an erudite African American poet, though Mackey and Wright deal with different subject matter and have different influences.

[Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I refuse this "we"
the chorusing rocks' echoes,
I refuse what of earth I'll remember
most"