Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He is the author of Wild Hundreds and an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. Wild Hundreds has been honored with the Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s award for Poetry Book of the Year and The Great Lakes College Association’s New Writer Award. His last rap album, Grown came out in 2015 with his group Daily Lyrical Product. Nate is a member of The Dark Noise Collective and co-directs Crescendo Literary with Eve Ewing. He completed his B.A. at Vanderbilt University and an M.F.A. at The University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Nate has received fellowships from Cave Canem, The Poetry Foundation, and The University of Michigan. He is the Director of National Programs for Louder Than A Bomb Youth Poetry Festival and has taught at The University of Michigan, Wabash College, and Northwestern University.
On his all-time favorite meal:
Hmm.. I don’t really know but I will say annually my favorite meal is New Year’s Day Dinner. My family has a big dinner at my mom’s house and we make gumbo, chicken wings, and a bunch of other food that I really love. We also invite a lot of people over. It’s such a great time for folks to be together and break bread. It’s my favorite day of the year.
On what the light looks like during his favorite meal of the day:
Breakfast on a sunny day.
On snacking while writing:
If I’m snacking then I’m avoiding writing.
On his go-to late-night snack:
Usually an apple or maybe some potato chips.
On food quirks:
I don’t [have any] really. As a kid one of my sisters was a very picky eater and so I’ve always been really relaxed about food probably as a counterpoint to that.
On his final meal request:
It depends why I’m dying to be honest. Do I know I’m dying? Am I sick or like am I finna get offed. Those things definitely impact what I would eat but honestly if I know I’m not long for this world I’m probably not going to want to eat.
