Criticism on Song of Andoumboulou: 40 by Nathaniel Mackey

Song of Andoumboulou: 40
 
                        Asked his name, he said,
    "Stra, short for Stranger."
      Sang it. Semisaid, semisung.
"Stronjer?" I asked, semisang,
    half in jest. "Stronger,"
                                         he
      whatsaid back. Knotted
    highness, loquat highness,
      rope turned inward, tugged.
    Told he'd someday ascend,
he ascended, weather known as
      Whatsaid Rung... Climb was
        all anyone was, he went
                                                on,
    want rode our limbs like
        soul, he insisted, Nut's
      unremitting lift...
                                    Pocketed
rock's millenarian pillow...                    
           
 
Ideas on Mackey's Work:
"Mackey writing of a ‘we’ who floated ‘boatlike, / birdlike’ (p.21), and on the third line the words ‘Semisaid, semisung’ give thematic prominence to this idea of a hybrid art."
 
Notes on the poem:
-paratactic lines  (lines that are shorter without subordination)
- alliteration is important
-his work is in liminal space between music and poetry
- sonic enjambment
-manipulates lines by using homonyms…
-many words seem to function as musical notes….
-motivated rhythms…Mackey chooses words and sounds to propel the poetry without necessarily considering the word itself…you could scan the work, but the prosody of his poetry is reliant on sonics—on musical beats— the words continue to trace back to other words within the poem.

"Instrumental play, poetic play; consider the noun ‘Andoumboulou’, which are spirits invoked at funerals within Dogon cosmogony…"
                - Luke Harley, "Music as prod and precedent