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Jim
Daniels
April 14, 2000
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A
native of Warren, Michigan, a working-class suburb less than
a mile from Detroit, Jim Daniels' poetry reflects the physicality
of manual labor, the noises and smells of machine shops and
factories, the metallic glint of polished steel and iron.
His first two poetry collections, Places/Everyone and Punching
Out, set in Detroit neighborhoods and factories, have been
described as realistic, gritty, and sometimes violent, but
were praised for their tough, spare style and unsentimental
portrayal of working people's lives. His third book, M-80,
centers on urban violence and its after-effects, while his
more recent books, Niagara Falls, Blessing this
House, and
Blue Jesus changed course with their issues of faith. He
has
edited or co-edited four anthologies of poetry, including
Letters to America: Contemporary American Poetry on Race,
and American
Poetry: The Next Generation. Daniels also wrote the screenplay
for "No Pets," an independent feature film directed
by Tony Buba, and wrote "Heart of Hearts," a one-act
play produced at the 13th Street Repertory Theater in New
York. His most recent works include: Street, a collection
of poems
paired with the photos of photographer and Carnegie Mellon
professor Charlee Brodsky; and Dumpster, an independent feature
film Daniels wrote and produced, both of which appeared in
2005.
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He is the author of
eight books of poems, including Show and Tell: New and
Selected Poems, which was a finalist for the 2004 Paterson Poetry Prize.
Daniels' second book of short stories, Detroit Tales, received
a bronze medal for the 2004 ForeWord Book of the Year in the
fiction-short stories category. Places/Everyone won the Brittingham
Prize for Poetry from the University of Wisconsin Press. Daniels'
other awards include two fellowships from the National Endowment
for the Arts and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
He has also received a Pushcart Prize and was included in Best
American Poetry 2000.
Educated at Alma College and Bowling Green State University,
Daniels is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Carnegie-Mellon
University. Jim Daniels lives with his wife, the writer Kristin
Kovacic, and their two children, Ramsey and Rosalie, in Pittsburgh.
"Jim
Daniels writes with grace and unsentimental sympathy about
ordinary, hard- edged lives, their celebrations and failures
and strivings. There is a world of dreams beneath the skin
of even the toughest city. Detroit Tales maps it beautifully." —Jean
Thompson, author of Wide Blue Yonder
To view Special
Collections' holdings of Jim Daniels' work, please click
here.
To hear Daniels
read from his own work, please visit the Vincent
Voice Library, here.
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Page Editor: BreezySilver |
Last Updated:
March 12, 2010
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