“City of ‘Impudent If’: The Dream of Justice and the Endless Search for the City in the Poetry of Nathaniel Mackey”

This talk discusses the intersection of politics, desire, and the city in the work of contemporary African-American poet Nathaniel Mackey. In Mackey, the city becomes a memory, ideal, delusion, and spur for a wandering collective that seeks a place and practice of justice. This talk examines the evolution of the city in his work, contrasts it to competing notions such as Ezra Pound’s City of Dioce and a traditionalist “shining city on a hill,” and considers the resonances of Mackey’s work with recent events of violence and uprising in American cities.