David Daniel explores a city-entire lives-swept clean off the map in this haunting debut
As breezes lap the shallow-tugged tide flow
And swallows twitter and skirt the dusk,
We lie within the wreckage of the stars-
The moon spill, our planets' pull-this sad machine.
--from "Seven-Star Bird"
You will not find Friendship, Texas; it now lies at the bottom of a lake of floodwater, forgotten. In Seven-Star Bird, David Daniel rescues the town's-and the poet's own family's-stories and memories, from an immigrant past and from the clutches of devastation. In a weaving of elliptical and elaborate voices, lyrics, and narratives, Daniel's debut collection-guided by Heraclitus-discovers an ethical, religious, and aesthetic antidote to the disasters of loss and disappointment, why the gods call down their inexplicable punishment, why we can never step into the same river twice.
David Daniel explores a city-entire lives-swept clean off the map in this haunting debut
As breezes lap the shallow-tugged tide flow
And swallows twitter and skirt the dusk,
We lie within the wreckage of the stars-
The moon spill, our planets' pull-this sad machine.
--from "Seven-Star Bird"
You will not find Friendship, Texas; it now lies at the bottom of a lake of floodwater, forgotten. In Seven-Star Bird, David Daniel rescues the town's-and the poet's own family's-stories and memories, from an immigrant past and from the clutches of devastation. In a weaving of elliptical and elaborate voices, lyrics, and narratives, Daniel's debut collection-guided by Heraclitus-discovers an ethical, religious, and aesthetic antidote to the disasters of loss and disappointment, why the gods call down their inexplicable punishment, why we can never step into the same river twice.
Industry Reviews
"Fusing history, folk wisdom, ancient religious thought, and a decidedly contemporary sense of the ironic, the poems of Seven-Star Bird are poems of homecoming and nowhere-a-home, of spiritual quest and of the earthly struggle to survive as a people and as a self. Daniel nimbly clocks and captures for us 'the terrible speed of beauty born and passing.'" --Carl Phillips
"These poems feel long pondered over, deep sought for. The more I read them, the more I felt in awe of them. Their wisdom is more than promise, a gift "not owned, but forever theirs." Forever ours? If we as readers are attentive to the "hand-shredding truth"-or is it an open-handedness of spirit-that fills these poems. David Daniel is a poet one can believe in, devout to both his affirmations and his doubts. Seven-Star Bird is an auspicious debut." --Bill Knott Fusing history, folk wisdom, ancient religious thought, and a decidedly contemporary sense of the ironic, the poems of "Seven-Star Bird" are poems of homecoming and nowhere-a-home, of spiritual quest and of the earthly struggle to survive as a people and as a self. Daniel nimbly clocks and captures for us 'the terrible speed of beauty born and passing.' "Carl Phillips"
These poems feel long pondered over, deep sought for. The more I read them, the more I felt in awe of them. Their wisdom is more than promise, a gift "not owned, but forever theirs." Forever ours? If we as readers are attentive to the "hand-shredding truth"-or is it an open-handedness of spirit-that fills these poems. David Daniel is a poet one can believe in, devout to both his affirmations and his doubts. "Seven-Star Bird" is an auspicious debut. "Bill Knott"" "Fusing history, folk wisdom, ancient religious thought, and a decidedly contemporary sense of the ironic, the poems of "Seven-Star Bird" are poems of homecoming and nowhere-a-home, of spiritual quest and of the earthly struggle to survive as a people and as a self. Daniel nimbly clocks and captures for us 'the terrible speed of beauty born and passing.'"--Carl Phillips
"These poems feel long pondered over, deep sought for. The more I read them, the more I felt in awe of them. Their wisdom is more than promise, a gift "not owned, but forever theirs." Forever ours? If we as readers are attentive to the "hand-shredding truth"-or is it an open-handedness of spirit-that fills these poems. David Daniel is a poet one can believe in, devout to both his affirmations and his doubts. "Seven-Star Bird" is an auspicious debut." --Bill Knott
