Daniel Lassell
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dlassell.bsky.social
Daniel Lassell
@dlassell.bsky.social
320 followers 330 following 91 posts
Author of Frame Inside a Frame (Texas Review Press, 2025) | Spit (Wheelbarrow Books Poetry Prize, 2021) | Ad Spot (Ethel Zine, 2021) | The Emptying Earth (Madhouse Press, 2023) | from Kentucky | he/him
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dlassell.bsky.social
Find me places in September and beyond! www.daniel-lassell.com/events
September 2, 2025 at 4:38 PM
dlassell.bsky.social
Siken is such a titan in modern American poetics—approaching him about a blurb seemed, far-and-away, a longshot for me. But I’m glad I asked. Shortly after sending him an email, he responded to me with such sincerity. And I am so incredibly honored with these gracious words he shared about my book
“Daniel Lassell is a master of subtraction, of what he calls a loosening joy. The poems here are filled with song, prayer, and silence. Restless and reflective, they shift and rub against the natural world, its vastness and its granularity, with striking precision and clarity. Here, a world accumulates even as it is undone—wreckage and reverence inexorably intertwined.” —Richard Siken, author of I Do Know Some Things, War of the Foxes, and Crush
August 1, 2025 at 3:21 PM
dlassell.bsky.social
[...] and breath-like line breaks in his prose poetry form. His poetry books changed my life.

And so, it is a profound honor that he wrote a blurb for my book, Frame Inside a Frame:
“What delights this gallery of poetic frames offers, leading us through the labyrinths of time and memory! Reading these poems is like following some Kentucky Dante through the hinterlands and, ultimately, down into the underworld to eavesdrop on the murmuring there. But what elevates this collection into the quietly sublime is the poetic voice of Daniel Lassell—direct, honest, revelatory—a humble witness to the beauty and the carnage of our times. I hope readers enjoy this fine collection as much as I have.” —David Shumate, author of Kimonos in the Closet and The Floating Bridge
July 25, 2025 at 4:44 PM
dlassell.bsky.social
And most recently, I have been astonished with Frank’s latest collection, Dark Octaves! I am so honored for these kind words he’s shared about my forthcoming collection!
“Whether dealing with climate change, an unsettling encounter with a bat trapped indoors, or the larger questions of what it means to inhabit a body, Daniel Lassell’s second full-length collection, Frame Inside a Frame, refuses to succumb to the temptation of pat answers or easy binaries. Using the concept of picture frames, the poet explores his subjects from multiple perspectives, aiming for an understanding that leads, not to Utopia, ‘but a room next to it.’ Lassell is a poet of generous intellect who employs an admirable economy of words to explore a world where grief is ‘more commonplace than joy,’ and we are caught ‘between question and haunt.’” —Frank Paino, author of Dark Octaves and Obscura
July 18, 2025 at 3:21 PM
dlassell.bsky.social
The concerns that Frame Inside a Frame perseverates are adjacent to the concerns that Davis’s first two books explore — his voice echoes throughout my book, an inspiration that I’ve continually turned toward again and again. I am incredibly honored that he offered these heartwarming words!
“Frame Inside a Frame is a kaleidoscopic chorus of devoted wonder. Through poems that brilliantly intensify the relentless echo and honesty of multiple perspectives, Daniel Lassell draws a faithful attention to the fragility and the fierceness of what connects us, to the forces that might leaven or level our capacity for feeling found. Bless this book.” —Geffrey Davis, author of One Wild Word Away and Night Angler
July 11, 2025 at 3:13 PM
dlassell.bsky.social
That’s why I was so overjoyed when Sara Eliza Johnson said yes to reading my collection, and offering a blurb for it!
“Remarkably intimate and complex, Frame Inside a Frame is a gift to read—and reread. Traversing the landscape of these poems, I find myself intellectually and emotionally moved, returning again and again to their sites of transformation, their intricate interrogations of what it means to be. Each poem is ‘like a resurrected body’ on the page, another ‘doorway in those woods’ that opens to deepen our understanding of the world, and our complicated place in it. Lassell has written a multifaceted gem of a book.” —Sara Eliza Johnson, author of Vapor and Bone Map
June 30, 2025 at 4:03 PM
dlassell.bsky.social
It is a beautifully constructed collection, one that makes me believe Codjoe is a poet whose life’s work will live on far after her lifetime. I am honored and eternally grateful that she offered a blurb for my book.
"Daniel Lassell's Frame Inside a Frame is a book about looking from various vantage points and perspectives across distance and time. In Lassell's gentle and capable hands, an aperture closes and opens like the valves of an alive and beating heart. I am grateful for all that courses through this collection: the wild and farm animals, the micro-moments of satisfaction and pleasure, and the indelible landscapes of Lassell's singular, poetic life." —Ama Codjoe, author of Bluest Nude
June 21, 2025 at 4:12 PM
dlassell.bsky.social
[Leading up to my book’s publication, I want to elevate the people who graciously blurbed my book]

Part of good poetry creation is an obsessive observance of everyday life. And then there is the observance of human emotions, [...]
“Daniel Lassell’s electrifying second collection sits us in the middle of nature and asks us to imagine how fragile life and its creation can be. No matter how hard we try to protect our children or ourselves, it ‘Doesn’t matter. In the end, the hardened object is a fragile object—like the body, the earth.’ Lassell works to build formal frames within these poems, borders not only to protect his loves but to understand them and himself. We are guided through snapshots of childhood and divinity, mercy and marriage, of a ‘small dog / yapping / yapping / into hoisted sky’ and how we take for granted what can be so easily taken from us.” —jason b. crawford, author of YEET! and Year of the Unicorn Kidz
June 13, 2025 at 8:52 PM
dlassell.bsky.social
The latest issue of the Birmingham Poetry Review is a stunning one! Thrilled to have a new poem in the issue, one that will appear in my forthcoming book, Frame Inside a Frame! ✨

Get a copy from @bham-poetry-review.bsky.social!!
April 29, 2025 at 4:20 PM
dlassell.bsky.social
Cover reveal! ✨✨✨Created by the amazing Erin Kirk!! My second full-length collection, FRAME INSIDE A FRAME, is now available for pre-order! www.tamupress.com/.../97816......
April 25, 2025 at 7:27 PM