Letters to America: Contemporary American Poetry on Race

by Jim Daniels (Contributor), Al Young (Contributor), Al Zolynas (Contributor)

Letters to America features the work of poets who have had the courage to write about race with honesty and passion. Speakign from the experience of Black, Native American, Asian, Arabic, Indian, Hispanic, and white culture, their diverse voices unite in a dialogue of poems which acknowledge and celebrate our differences while exploring America's shameful history of racial intolerance. The poets in this anthology include Gwendolyn Brooks, Charles Bukowski, Joy Harjo, Langstong Hughes, Sharon Olds, James Wright, Etheridge Knight, Gary Soto, Garrett Kaoru Hongo, Audre Lorde, David Ignatwo, and others.

Genres: Poetry

232 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1995

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

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you write back, please
tell me what country I'm in.

I feel so poor now.
These words are all I own.

[behsforensics]

Cutting is for Time, Temperature
By Jim Daniels

Another cutting is for Xenophobia – A Collection
By Daryl Ngee Chinn