|
Saltwater Empire
Poems by
Raymond McDaniel
“Physically, as if you are losing the top of your head: that is how you will feel when you read Ray McDaniel’s poems about New Orleans. From the quarrel with others he has made not rhetoric, but stunning, eloquent and shining intercession on behalf of all occupants of the ‘Convention Centers of the New World.’ This is the testimony of a poet, the poet as psalmist and repairer-of-the-breach.”—Lorna Goodison
“If this book doesn’t become one of this year’s big hits, I have no idea what will.”—Stephen Burt, Harriet (the Poetry Foundation’s Web log)
Conceived in the years before Hurricane Katrina and deeply influenced by its aftermath, Saltwater Empire is an assemblage of geographical metaphor expressed in original lyrics, text from The Tempest, and the voices of a ravaged New Orleans. As McDaniel’s poems enter the ecological, political, and religious miasma of the tropical South, they offer an uncommonly perceptive look at cataclysmic disaster, human cruelty, and cultural resilience.
Also available by this author:
|
