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Saltwater Empire
Reviews
Ann Arbor Observer:
“Capture[s] the languid, tropical atmosphere of the Gulf Coast. . . . McDaniel creates the poems of this historical moment that may indeed become part of the way we remember it.”
Shellie Lobis, The Book Mark, Atlantic Beach, FL, BookSense.com: “Raymond McDaniel’s Saltwater Empire is one of the most powerful and unique books of poetry to come out in recent memory. Inspired by the events that took place in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he employs a variety of voices to explore the layers of human existence, from the good and hopeful to the dark and disturbing, and everything in between.”
Stephen Burt, Harriet (the Poetry Foundation’s Web log):
“Parts of this big, part-lyric, part-reportorial sequence transcribe things that post-Katrina residents say . . . [McDaniel] alternates the versified transcriptions with baroque post-Hart-Crane poems written around, about and to the history of the city, its slave-trade legacy, its layout, its music. . . . If this book doesn’t become one of this year’s big hits, I have no idea what will.”
Rae Armantrout:
“This book is a post-traumatic bacchanal. The revelers are also mourners: they are witches, troubadours, and survivors speaking in one collective voice. They know that we, ‘survive not by force, but bliss. / Whatever’s uttered, all prayer remains this.’ These poems are prayers—or spells. I am enchanted.”
Lorna Goodison:
“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.”
Also available by this author:
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