"In Street Calligraphy, Jim Daniels acknowledges grief, and sees his feet on the path to another beauty. It is the beauty of tough beginnings in American cities, the urban ars poetica of challenges written in tar and concrete, where children learn to negotiate fear and cultivate hope. The real and the lyrical are the systolic and diastolic of the poet's heart. He speaks both to humanity and Detroit as he describes the city with "...its odd magic, how you could both stay in one place and move..." This is an honest and well-honed collection that will bring light to the lives it celebrates, our own." -- Afaa M. Weaver, Drew University