Chapter 16

“In the Midst of the Heroin Epidemic”

Book Excerpt: In the Months of My Son’s Recovery

By Kate Daniels | December 21, 2018

Kate Daniels is the author of five collections of poetry, including Four Testimonies and A Walk in Victoria’s Secret. She lives in Nashville, where she directs the creative-writing program at Vanderbilt University. “In the Midst of the Heroin Epidemic” will appear in her forthcoming collection, In the Months of My Son’s Recovery, which will be published by Louisiana State University Press on May 15, 2019.

Reconsidering My Whole Position

Robert Penn Warren’s Pulitzer Prize-winning poems finally allowed Kate Daniels to call herself a Southern writer

By Kate Daniels | June 10, 2016

June 10, 2016 Robert Penn Warren is the only writer to have won a Pulitzer Prize in both poetry and fiction—and he won for poetry twice: in 1958 for Promises: Poems and in 1979 for Now and Then: Poems. In the fifth of a nine-essay series commemorating the centennial year of the Pulitzer Prizes, poet Kate Daniels remembers the way Warren’s poetry helped her confront an ugly past.

Phil Levine and the Burger Bitch

There once was a Pulitzer Prize-winner who wrote poems about the working-class people most writers never notice

By Kate Daniels | January 8, 2016

January 8, 2016 When Philip Levine gave a poetry reading at Vanderbilt, the room was packed. But in his introduction to the event, Vereen Bell bypassed entirely the impressive literary credentials of the Pulitzer Prize-winner. He told, instead, the story of the Burger Bitch, how he had started talking with her one day as she went about her trash-dumping duties.

"The Pedicure"

By Kate Daniels | July 14, 2010

July 14, 2010 Kate Daniels is the author of three volumes of poetry, including The Niobe Poems and Four Testimonies: Poems. Her first volume, The White Wave was awarded the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize for Poetry. Her MFA is from Columbia University. Her poems have been anthologized in a number of publications and have appeared in journals such as American Poetry Review, Critical Quarterly, and The Southern Review. She has also edited a volume of poems by Muriel Rukeyser and co-edited a book about Robert Bly: Of Solitude and Silence. Her fourth collection of poetry, A Walk in Victoria’s Secret, will appear in October from LSU Press.

Tias and Primas: On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us

By Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, illustrated by Josie Del Castillo
Seal Press
304 pages
$30

“Within these pages, I found my abuela, my tías and my primas — laughing, crying, and nodding alongside me. This book is a gift of understanding, and loving one’s family, even when our families are complicated and painful. It’s a beautiful reminder of the power of storytelling and the profound connection of kinship.”

~ Paola Mendoza, author, organizer and filmmaker