front cover of The Niobe Poems
The Niobe Poems
Kate Daniels
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
Kate Daniels’s central myth is that of Niobe, the mother in Greek mythology whose children were killed by the gods because of her great pride in them.  She taps the lasting power of the ancient story in poems about personal loss and political insanity.  Though the subjects are frequently grim, the final effect of the book is not, since Daniels’s central theme is endurance, the discovery of what we need to survive.
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front cover of Out of Silence
Out of Silence
Selected Poems
Muriel Rukeyser
Northwestern University Press, 1992
Out of Silence is a poetry book encompassing the contradictions of twentieth-century America. 
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front cover of Slow Fuse of the Possible
Slow Fuse of the Possible
A Memoir of Poetry and Psychoanalysis
Kate Daniels
West Virginia University Press, 2022

“Daniels is a keen observer of visceral moments and powerful emotions.” —Kirkus Reviews
“A book of burning soulfulness.” —Edward Hirsch

An engrossing and beautifully crafted memoir of imagination, obsession, and disaster from the couch of old-fashioned four-times-a-week psychoanalysis.

Slow Fuse of the Possible is a poet’s narrative of a troubled psychoanalysis. It is also a commanding meditation on the powers of language, for good and for ill.

From the beginning of their time together, it is clear that the enigmatic analyst and Daniels are not a good match, yet both are determined to continue their work—the former in nearly complete silence, and the latter as best she can with the tools at her disposal: careful attention to language, deep reading, and literary imagination. Throughout, the story is filtered through the mind of Emily Dickinson, whose poetry Daniels uses as a fulcrum for the interpretation of her own experience. The book is saturated with Dickinson’s verse, and Dickinson is an increasingly haunting presence as crises emerge and the author unravels.

This compelling lyric memoir, so richly steeped in all facets of language and the literary, allows readers a glimpse into the mind of a renowned poet, revealing the dazzling and anguished connections between poetry and psychoanalysis.
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