Mackey writes both prose and poetry and has published many novels, including her historical fiction of Neolithic times, and many highly acclaimed books of poetry. She reveals her writing and creative process and how each kind of writing requires a different approach. She describes her process of “creative trance” that helps her to move into her own unconscious. She moves into a “very light kind of trance. It’s called liminal, where you stand on the threshold between the dream world and the regular world. You have a foot in each side and you can participate each way. I want to go to that world [that is a] wordless space before words exist and where the words bubble up and come to me. Then I want to be able to take them back to consciousness.” She also shares how some of her writing has come when her body temperature goes over 105o. These fevered states gave her priceless poetic gifts. She says there is something that happens neurologically that gives access to other dimensions. She also speaks about her mission as a poet is to be a witness, “I think of one of my missions or duties as a poet in this time is to preserve as a witness the beauty of the old planet, the planet that we’re losing. And to write it for future generations. I see a lot of my poetry as being written for future generations.”
