Synopsis
This co-author of We Fish: The Journey to Fatherhood presents a mature book of poems representing the "Omari Character's" adult voice. The honesty and poignancy that readers fell in love with in the poems from We Fish are still present in this new volume. In fact, the shocking nature, language, and emotional content of many of these poems can only come from one place: the attempt for Omari to heal after thirty-three years of experiencing life as a black male in America. These poems confront issues of racism, and challenge notions of sexism and homophobia among heterosexual black men. These poems problematize the concept of love through unique and fresh perspectives. Wrapped in Black is a work that explores the themes of family, religion, education, and the quest to critically understand the self from a strong, thus often victimized, black male perspective. These poems are ambitious in that they dream to fulfill the true purpose for all poetry: to first have a human's life experiences shared, heard, and validated; then, to have the readers use the poems to begin to critically reflect on their own lives in order to come to understand that the power to transform their lives lies within each of them.
About the Author
Omari Daniel earned his Master's of Fine Arts for Poetry from The University of Maryland. He is also the latest poet to publish from the transcendent wave of poetry produced from the Cave Canem Poets. He has taught poetry at the University of Maryland and he has been teaching poetry in Montgomery County Maryland Public Schools for the past decade. Dr. Daniel recently earned his Ph.D. from The University of Maryland after researching ways to humanize the teaching of poetry, so that students can use poetry as a vehicle for empowerment, realization of their own agency, the development of a critical understanding of self, and as a means of personal transformation.The author and publisher wish to express their grateful acknowledgement to the following publications in which some of these poems first appeared: Drummings Between Us ("The Next Mourning"); Cave Canem Anthology I ("On the Hudson at Cave Canem"); Cave Canem Anthology III ("Hidden Curriculum"); Cave Canem Anthology V ("God Fool All Six Foot Three Two Hundred Eight Black Pounds of Me"). We would also like to thank Creative Nonfiction, the Jazz Journal, and The University of Pittsburgh Press for publishing earlier poems.
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