Blessing the House

by Jim Daniels

Jim Daniels’ Blessing the House visits the sites of domestic faith - Catholic schools, sex and marriage, childbirth - in an attempt to witness a world worth believing in.  In their search for hope, grace, and decency in the small dramas of an individual life, these poems become larger, more overtly political and express a genuine interest in human emotion.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 1997

About the author

James Raymond Daniels (born 1956 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American poet and writer. Like his father and many of his friends, Daniels worked for the Ford Motor Company before college. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Alma College in 1978 and a master’s degree from Bowling Green State University in 1980. In his writing, he addresses the issues of blue collar work, adolescence, and determining the role of a poet. The factories proved a setting for many of his poems, which describe the hardships factory workers face.

Since 1981, Daniels has been on the faculty of the creative writing program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he is the Thomas Stockham Baker Professor of English. The majority of Daniels' papers can be found within the Special Collections department of Michigan State University's main library.

Daniels' literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series. He won the inaugural Brittingham Prize in Poetry in 1985 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Reviews

[Frank R. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I guess I’ll be the first and only one to violently despise these poems. I’ve had this book since its publication and recently revisited it thinking that when I was mature enough, I’d relate better to this “braided narrative.”

I really cannot stand these long, meandering—but with some kind of anticlimactic bow tying them up—narrations and Pittsburgh scenes. I love Pittsburgh but this guy makes me hate it.

I suppose I’m either not mature enough to relate to these or they simply do not speak to my experience/level of emotional awareness. At 38, I still hate it, so it’s leaving my shelves.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jim Daniels collection, Blessing the House, is a braided narrative that primarily deals with the failures of domesticity. The poems here are free verse, short-to-medium line lengths, and lots of quiet desperation and hope. Indeed, the is the collection here that shines more than particular poems, and it is a collection that benefits from getting through your 20s and failing at love and/or parenting. The nostalgia is both reveled in and strongly critiqued through Daniels' exploration in how it pushes the narrator of his poems both into the future and also stops the future and present from being fully inhabited. A solid collection of narrative poetry.

[Phil Fillinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Daniels at a poetry workshop I was selected for in high school. The Mancini Academy Of Arts put the whole thing on and he was the guest speaker. He was also a professor at Carnegie Melon, which gave him a decent amount of credibility.

Now to the collection of poems. I initially read this at too early of an age... not fully appreciating it. Growing up a bit I eventually “got it” and really enjoyed most of the poems. This books hold a special place for me as it’s a “small time” author, solid poetry, and the nostalgia from the school days.

[Sonya Feher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daniels is a master of braided narrative.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recntly re-read my copy of this and it was better than I remember it. Very good contemporary poetry. Thought provoking and emotive. Very well done.