RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music
Today on the MSU Press podcast we’re headed to the poor man’s promised land: Detroit rock city, the home of Motown, the birthplace of funk, the eight mile cradle of American music. Joining us on our trip today are Jim Daniels and M. L. Liebler, the editors of exciting anthology from MSU Press of “the poetry of Detroit Music” entitled RESPECT.
RESPECT is a massive collection of poems and lyrics, a monument that shows the global impact of Detroit’s music scene. Its contents span genres from jazz and Motown and R&B to hip-hop, rap, rock, and even techno and electronica. The book’s contributors are Grammy winners, Pulitzer Prize winners, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees, and poets laureate. In its nearly 450 pages appear pieces by Eminem, June Jordan, Rita Dove, Jack White, Nikki Giovanni, Patricia Smith, Billy Bragg, and many more. Check out the RESPECT Spotify playlist for a great soundtrack to the book.
RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music is available at msupress.org and other fine booksellers. You can find Jim Daniels’s author page on Facebook and M. L. Liebler at mlliebler.com. You can connect with the press on Facebook and @msupress on twitter, where you can also find me @kurtmilb.
A Detroit native and prize winning poet, Jim Daniels is the Thomas Stockham Baker University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He is the author of many collections of fiction and poetry, as well as four produced screenplays. Daniels has also edited five anthologies, including Challenges to the Dream: The Best of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Writing Awards.
RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music is available at msupress.org and other fine booksellers. You can find Jim Daniels’s author page on Facebook and M. L. Liebler at mlliebler.com. You can connect with the press on Facebook and @msupress on twitter, where you can also find me @kurtmilb.
A Detroit native and prize winning poet, Jim Daniels is the Thomas Stockham Baker University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He is the author of many collections of fiction and poetry, as well as four produced screenplays. Daniels has also edited five anthologies, including Challenges to the Dream: The Best of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Writing Awards.
M. L. Liebler is an internationally known and widely published Detroit poet, university professor, literary arts activist, and arts organizer. Author of fifteen books, Liebler has been a member of the English department faculty at Wayne State University since 1980, and he is currently the President of the Detroit Writers’ Guild. In 2018, Liebler received the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles literary award and the Murray E. Jackson Scholar in the Arts Award at Wayne State.
RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music is available at msupress.org and other fine booksellers.
RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music is available at msupress.org and other fine booksellers.
The MSU Press podcast is a joint production of MSU Press and the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University. Thanks to Daniel Trego, Madiha Ghous, Donté Smith, Kylene Cave, and the team at MSU Press, especially Elise Jajuga and Julie Reaume, for helping to produce this podcast. Our theme music is “Coffee” by Cambo.