In his new collection, Jeffrey McDaniel confronts the insular and expansive qualities of loss. With electric language and surrealistic imagery, McDaniel's poems deliver the quotidian elements of middle-age life while weaving us in & out of childhood and adulthood alongside body and mind. The tragic and life affirming share the same page and the same world, reminding us how close corruption can be to innocence; domesticity to fantasy; aging to youth.

Even if you count yourself among the unredeemed who claim they don't like poetry, buy this book anyway. It will convert you and install a skylight in your brain. Alive and kicking in these pages is the voice of a brilliantly comic consciousness. McDaniel is a candid, frisky survivor: hyperalert, conversant with drugs and sobriety, obscene phone call addicts, 'boner etiquette, ' fatherhood, the special hell of family, being an 'emotional warrior' and so much more. He's an urban wordsmith of the first order. You hold in your hands his anguished autobiography, a smorgasbord of famished compassion, tenderness, luminous surprises, and armor-piercing humor. - Amy Gerstler It was an energetic moment when I encountered Jeffrey McDaniel for the first time. Even after a few lines it became obvious that he was someone who produced not only a very vivid but also innovative poetry. A fusion of pain and goodness, comic reliefs, and explosive moments on the crunchy surface of daily horrors/shocks

The Last American Valentine, illustrated poems to seduce and destroy, (writebloody publishing) is an anthology of exhilarating modern love poetry. Each author has been paired up with some of the best American graphic designers for this annual collection of stunning work. Featuring acclaimed authors, musicians and barflys such as MICHAEL MCCLURE JACK HIRSCHMAN MINDY NETTIFEE RICHARD SWIFT NATHAN WILLET (cold war kids) RICK LUPERT BRENDAN CONSTANTINE BEAU SIA AGNETA FALK MICHAEL ROBERTS MICHAEL C FORD BUDDY WAKEFIELD AMBER TAMBLYN JOHN GARDINER CRISTIN OKEEFE APTOWICZ SHAPPY SEASHOLTZ ROGER BONAIR AGARD LYNNE PROCOPE VICTOR INFANTE DERRICK BROWN 216 pages. Paperback. writebloody.com

"Reading Jeffrey McDaniel's gorgeously dark and utterly compelling "Chapel of Inadvertent Joy" reminds me that he is probably the most important poet in America. The book in your hands was written by a master of metaphor and a poet of huge imagination and fierce ingenuity, a fine antidote to realism. Get this voice in your head."

--Major Jackson