FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 March 31, 2005
Contact: Heather Haas
(816) 235-1601*
haash@umkc.edu
 

Poet Overcomes Childhood Poverty and Abuse to Publish First Book with BkMk Press 

KANSAS CITY, Mo.— BkMk Press at UMKC announces the May 1 publication of Streetfighting, poet Daniel Donaghy’s first book. Most of the book’s forty-two poems explore Donaghy’s adolescence and coming of age in the struggling heart of Philadelphia.

 “The poems in this collection represent my life, particularly my early years, pretty well,” Donaghy said. “I can still remember waiting in line with my mother outside St. Francis’s Mission on Kensington Avenue one first of the month, when we were given a free pound of butter and a free block of government cheese.”

The events of his adolescence, including Friday Masses and Phillies’ games, are given in poems like “The Years Without Understanding” and “Ann’s Corner Store,” as well as a sexual awakening in poems like, “The Girl Who Taught Me Spanish.” The title poem “Streetfighting” however, explains the rage he felt against the attackers of his mother and sister, picturing his father’s face while he threw punches.

 “I called the collection Streetfighting because that’s what I spent much of my youth doing,” he said. “I got into fights sticking up for my mother and sister; I got into trouble with the police a few times; I saw a lot of my friends ruining, sometimes ending, their lives because of one day’s bad choices.”

Poems like “Anchor” and “Shrapnel” convey his intense relationship with his father, who left the family when Donaghy was 12-years old and returned when he was 21-years old. With candid lines like, “he presses / my fingers into the shrapnel wounds / on his neck to show me just how close / I’d come to never being born,” he spurns sentimentality and cuts right to the core of his father-son experiences.

 “I felt this pressure of fitting into the male’s role, and I remember thinking ‘I’m 12 years old,’” Donaghy said. “I was in this city that didn’t make sense and my family didn’t make sense and I asked myself, ‘What’s going to happen to me?’”

 Luckily for his audience, he discovered an outlet in poetry. He has taken personal experiences of living in a hardened city with a cast of impetuous, memorable characters like one-eyed Timmy, the widower Felix, and George, the basketball player.

 “We experience the world of these people, but I have to be careful not to ask people to care. They should care because of the work itself.”

 Donaghy holds a B.A. from Kutztown University, an M.A. from Hollins College, and an M.F.A. in creative writing (poetry) from Cornell University. He is currently completing a Ph.D. in English at the University of Rochester. His poems have appeared in New Letters, The Southern Review, Poet Lore, Cimarron Review, Texas Review, Commonweal, Image, West Branch, and other journals. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and the Cornell Council for the Arts. He lives in Spencerport, New York, with his wife and daughter.

 Streetfighting is available from BkMk Press from SPD in Berkeley, Calif. (www.spdbooks.org), and from other wholesale and retail outlets. It is $13.95 in trade paperback, ISBN 1-886157-49-9, 70 pp.

BkMk Press was founded in 1971 and became a part of UMKC in 1983. The press publishes fine literature by contemporary authors. Financial assistance for BkMk Press is provided by the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency, by UMKC, and by private donations. Media review copies of Streetfighting may be requested by calling 816-235-2558.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City, established in 1963, has the following strategic goals: In 2006: We are a national leader in scholarship and creative activity; We attract, nurture, and develop responsible community leaders; We are an essential community partner and resource; We are a workplace of choice; and We have the resources to fuel our vision.

*Individuals with speech or hearing impairments may call Relay Missouri at (800) 735-2966 (TT) or (800) 735-2466 (voice).

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