David Daniel

He is a professor of creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University where the festival is held.

• Name — David Daniel • Born — 20 August 1960 • Birthplace — Danville, Kentucky, U.S. • Occupation — Poet • Period — 1986–present • Genre — Poetry • Notable Works — Ornaments (2017) • Education — Vanderbilt University (B.A., 1982) Johns Hopkins University (M.A., 1983) University of Virginia (M.F.A., 1986)

Daniel was born in Danville, Kentucky, on August 20, 1960, and lived in Louisiana and North Carolina before his family settled in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, when he was 10 years old. Daniel earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Vanderbilt University with a double major in English and philosophy in 1982. The following year, he received a Master of Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University in their Writing Seminars program. Then in 1986, he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Virginia, where he was a Henry Hoynes Fellow.

In 1987, Daniel became the editor of AWP Chronicle (now known as The Writer’s Chronicle). The following year after moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts, he became the associate editor of the Harvard Book Review and around the same time, joined the editorial staff of Ploughshares. He became the poetry editor for the latter literary journal in 1992, a post he held for 15 years. In 2007, he became the co-poetry editor of The Literary Review, as well as a member of its board of directors, positions he held until 2012.

The Quick and the Dead, a chapbook of Daniel's poetry was published by Haw River Press in 1992.

Daniel's first full-length poetry collection, Seven-Star Bird, was published by Graywolf Press in 2003. In 2004, the book was awarded the Larry Levis Reading Prize. One of the most prestigious awards of its kind, it is given to the best first or second book of poems published in the year. After reading Seven-Star Bird, legendary literary critic Harold Bloom called Daniel “an authentic heir of Hart Crane” and included a lengthy excerpt from the book in the 2006 anthology he edited, The Library of America: Anthology of American Religious Poetry. Poet Tom Sleigh also referenced Crane in regards to the book, writing, “Like Hart Crane in ‘The Bridge’, David Daniel has a vision of desire that is transcendental, but also social, that links erotic and domestic love with love of the divine.”

Daniel's second full-length book of poetry, Ornaments, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2017 as part of the highly regarded Pitt Poetry Series. In a review of the book published in Pratik, writer and critic Barrett Warner wrote, “With these poems in Ornaments, Daniel has perfected his natural gifts. He seamlessly enters any century and any sound and any love without its feeling overblown. Daniel doesn’t suspend our disbelief, he engages and embraces it.”

Daniel’s third full-length collection of poems What Love Is When the World Is in Want was published in March 2025 by Nirala Publications. In a review of the book for MicroLit, Gail Hosking wrote, “Creatures announce the arrival of his son with indirect communication, implying not only the circle of life, but the connection of us all to everything. He explores our wild heart’s places, coyotes he speaks with, first loves, and the mystery and mystical with an upside down bluejay caught in his bird feeder. He spends time with ‘the night the barred owl visited perched on a branch above our porch.’ I am in love with his line about that owl, who ‘…looked at us/ for a long time, long enough for us to know/ most everything we need to know.’ It gives me an almost spiritual chill every time I read it.”

In March of 2026, Galileo Press published What Love Is, which features nine illuminated poems with graphic-novel-style artwork by George Cochrane and commentary from both Daniel and Cochrane. Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Author Daniel and artist Cochrane present a poetry-filled work of graphic literature that illuminates love in moments of beauty, awkwardness, and tragedy...A strong poetic work that honors the comic-book form.”