Hambone's call: Nathaniel Mackey and editorial poetics

This essay examines Nathaniel Mackey's editorship of the literary journal Hambone. Placing Mackey's editorship in conversation with his theory of 'discrepant engagement', which he describes as a stylised practice that seeks to open 'presumably closed orders of identity and s...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTextual practice Vol. 34; no. 6; pp. 881 - 901
Main Author Foley, Abram
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abindgon Routledge 02.06.2020
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
African American literature
African American studies
African Americans
Artistic expression
Conversation
Creativity
Cross cultural studies
Cultural identity
editing
Editors
Improvisation
literary journals
Mackey, Nathaniel (1947- )
Nathaniel Mackey
Poetics
poetry
publishing
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Summary:This essay examines Nathaniel Mackey's editorship of the literary journal Hambone. Placing Mackey's editorship in conversation with his theory of 'discrepant engagement', which he describes as a stylised practice that seeks to open 'presumably closed orders of identity and signification', I argue that Mackey develops an editorial poetics that opens American literary culture to a deep history of African American and cross-cultural creative expression and improvisation. The history of such improvisation - often taken up in the face dispossession - transforms Mackey's editorial poetics into a sustained reflection on concepts of labour and hospitality at work in everyday creative practices.
ISSN:0950-236X
1470-1308
DOI:10.1080/0950236X.2018.1517104