Raymond McDaniel is the author of Murder, a National Poetry Series winner, and Saltwater Empire, a Book Sense Top 10 Poetry title, both from Coffee House Press. He writes for The Constant Critic and The Boston Review. His next book, Special Powers and Abilities, will appear in 2012.
“Since the emotions of the Negro race are foreign to the white man…” You should have heard just what I seen and shrug off a music that cannot be escaped— my sainted mother’s song prizes tarpaper, water’s tap, shuffle of the broom on the roof so the whole house don’t fall in, precious. No room […]
No food full enough to tacit tastings, rice in the palms of her siblings-seven. Unseen her steps and lattices, equally unseen her feats or fealty, her catching. Never known that grain grown straight, though plum honey on my hands each finger sticky sweet in its fissures and webbing. Her fingers splayed, her roots in gloves, […]
As for palm-food, pinched face on the fruit in your hands: that milk is too sweet to be trusted. Fort my part I prefer lime mingled with blood in the whorls of this tattoo. While waiting this out, you should eat, lament the singe and sting of your fingerprints. Sediment here, and mist. Not to […]
Raymond McDaniel, author of Murder and the forthcoming Saltwater Empire (both from Coffee House Press), recommends two poets “everyone should read.”