The Brave Never Write Poetry

The brave ride streetcars to jobs
early in the morning, have traffic accidents,
rob banks. The brave have children, relationships,
mortgages. The brave never write these things
down in notebooks. The brave die and they are
dead.

First published in 1985, when Daniel Jones was just twenty-six, The Brave Never Write Poetry, the poet/critic/novelist’s lone collection of poems, was a cult hit, turning ?poetry’ on its head before its author (then known simply as ?Jones’) swore off verse entirely. Written in a direct, plainspoken, autobiographical and at times confessional style in the tradition of Charles Bukowski and Al Purdy, these confrontational poems about sex and boredom, drugs and suicide, document Jones’ depressive, alcoholic years as an enfant terrible.

This long overdue revised edition brings Jones’ unforgettable voice to a new generation of readers and includes the complete text of the original collection (including Jones’ own sardonic assessments of his own poetry) and a new postscript essay by poet/critic Kevin Connolly.

Daniel Jones was born in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1959, and lived in Toronto from 1977 until his suicide in 1994. His books include the experimental novel Obsessions, a collection of minimalist short stories, The People One Knows, and the posthumously published 1978 (Rush Hour Revisions, re-released by Three O’Clock Press), a novel set in the Toronto punk scene, which Jones was working on at the time of his death.