Jeffrey McDaniel

Who is Jeffrey McDaniel?

Jeffrey McDaniel is an American poet. He has published four books of poetry, most recently The Endarkenment. He is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. His writing has been included in Ploughshares, The Best American Poetry 1994, The Best American Poetry 2010, and The New Young American Poets, as well as on the National Endowment for the Arts website. He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

McDaniel received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 1990, where he studied with Thomas Lux, Brooks Haxton, Kate Knapp-Johnson, Cornelius Eady, and Safiya Henderson-Holmes. In his senior year of college, McDaniel was in a weekly reading group with authors Joel Brouwer, Tessa Rumsey, and Marisa de los Santos among others. A chapbook, The Boy Inside The Turtle, was published in 1989 by fellow student Gerry LaFemina.

McDaniel received an MFA from George Mason University in 1993, where he studied with C.K. Williams, Susan Tichy, and Carolyn Forche. In grad school, he was the poetry editor for the school's national literary magazine, Phoebe, 1991–92, and the editor, 1992-93.