Blessing the House

Reflecting upon death and our ability to move on after the initial shock, these poems resonate with meaning not only for the individual self, but for society at large. . . . Daniels manages "to overcome the paradox of the death of too many and the pain of so many more, yet to still continue as if existence made any sense at all.

[Daniels's] talent remains as strong and defiant as ever. . . . What appeals to me most in these new poems is how Daniels experiences the world he moves in and through. He feels it with his entire self.

The book's power lies in its generous, stable sense of moral gravity—with its author not preaching above us but working things out beside us.

These are tender, moving, and nostalgic poems about an American life, beautifully wrought and vividly close to the experience of all of us born in small towns.

Daniels searches through the darkness of his past with the revealing flashlight of his language. He shows how what was is still turning in his life; he shares the echoes he hears; he sways in the circles of time, and with him we discover the still burning ashes of memory. . . . What is so appealing about Daniels's poetry is its vividness and immediacy, his arrangement of details that make the scenes, the characters, the memories come alive.