Poetry. Conceived in the years before Hurricane Katrina and deeply influenced by its aftermath, McDaniel's SALTWATER EMPIRE is a brilliant assemblage of geographical metaphor expressed in original lyrics, Shakespearean text, and the voices of New Orleans. As Raymond McDaniel's poems enter the ecological, political, and religious miasma of the Gulf Coast, their moral, philosophical, and literary complexity offer an uncommonly perceptive look at cataclysmic disaster, human cruelty, and cultural resilience. "This book is a post-traumatic bacchanal. The revelers are also mourners: they are witches, troubadours, and survivors speaking in one collective voice... These poems are prayers-or spells. I am enchanted" -Rae Armantrout.

Author City: Ann Arbor, MI USA

Raymond McDaniel is the author of the National Poetry Series award-winning collection Murder (a violet). His writing appears in many magazines and in the anthology American Poets in the 21st Century. A Floridian, McDaniel now lives in Ann Arbor, teaches at the University of Michigan, hosts the reading series at Shaman Drum Bookshop, and writes for The Constant Critic.

Reviews and Other Links
Stephen Burt in The Believer