Ken Walker on Fonograf's Newest Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey LP

"Curated by the visual artist Shannon Ebner, Fonograf Editions' latest release splits 13 tracks from 1991 to 2017," writes Ken Walker for Hyperallergic about Stray: A Graphic Tone, which "pairs two poets who are experts of sound, language, and archive — Nathaniel Mackey and Susan Howe." More:

Both Howe and Mackey write with economy. While their poetry shares this quality, it diverges in rhythm or upon the question of whether research requires utter accuracy rather than imagination. The record offers additional insight with excerpts from poems and interviews in the liner notes.

When I was a graduate student at Brooklyn College, Susan Howe read from her book That This. It seemed impossible for Howe’s poems to be spoken, but after her reading they made more sense. She told the audience that the great epistemological secret of poetry is hidden in the keeping of time. I also saw Nathaniel Mackey read from a paper he wrote called “Blue in Green: Black Interiority.” Mackey said that poets have to “wring the word.”

Howe has won the Griffin and the Bollingen and many other awards. Mackey has won the National Book Award and a Whiting Award. Fonograf and Ebner have done us all a favor by presenting an archive within an archive like shadows emerging into actual form. You can hear laughs, whistles, and the poets talk about their work in their own terms with their own voices...

Read on at Hyperallergic.