Birth Marks (American Poets Continuum) by Jim Daniels


Birth Marks (American Poets Continuum)
Title : Birth Marks (American Poets Continuum)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1938160169
ISBN-10 : 9781938160165
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 120
Publication : First published January 1, 2013

A poet of the working-class and city streets, Jim Daniels's fourteenth poetry collection travels from Detroit to Ohio to Pittsburgh, from one post-industrial city to another, across jobs and generations. Daniels focuses on the urban landscape and its effects on its inhabitants as they struggle to establish community on streets hissing with distrust and random violence.

Out here, silence scrapes its knuckles
in an attempt at prayer.

Jim Daniels is Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English at Carnegie Melon. Poetry editor for the scholarly journal A Working Class History of America , his awards include two National Endowment for the Arts Awards and the Brittingham Prize for Poetry.

Birth Marks (American Poets Continuum) Reviews

  • Jason

    "I was riding the jackass express
    into the quicksand of bad grades and miscelleneous
    misdemeanors."

  • Mike

    A sweeping portrait of the poet's childhood and teen years in Detroit, his working-class family, the jobs that came and went, and really of the Rust Belt itself. Some of the poems concern the author's current-day career as a professor of literature and father himself, but while these are good, they take something away from the cohesive feeling of the book and its apparent primary focus on Detroit and industry. Still, it's a strong—very strong—collection and every single poem is quite good, with some being superb. What is more, you learn from this volume things you'd not gain if you read ten books of history of Detroit or the sociology of blue-collar American jobs. What you obtain here via Daniel's words is a picture of pride but also of the very fabric of the life Daniels knew growing up and how etched that life is within the stonework of the American spirit.

  • Andrea Janov

    This collection is true to Daniels voice, the one that walks the lines of auto factory worker and Carnegie Mellon professor, father and some looking to cop, respectability and miscreant. His words are common and accessable, his worlds are real, he gives a voice to all of us who are caught between multiple identities.

  • Mark Wigert

    Very good, relatable, gritty, readable poems from a poet who grew up in Warren, Michigan during the 60s & 70s.

  • Melissa Stein

    Love when authors write about Michigan and especially around the Detroit area.