David Daniels (poet)

The visual poet David Daniels (October 11, 1933 – May 12, 2008) was born in Beth Israel Hospital, Newark, New Jersey and grew up in Maplewood, New Jersey. He made words out of pictures and pictures out of words for over 60 years. Visual Poetry: The Shape Poem: Shapes tell the words what to say and words tell the shapes what to form. Daniels lived in Berkeley, California and died at home among friends.

His collection of more than 350 visual poems in PDF format, The Gates of Paradise (2000), as well as his autobiographical collection of more than 250 visual poems, Years (2003), are available online in their entirely at UbuWeb, edited by Kenneth Goldsmith; and at his own website The Gates of Paradise. His collection of visual biographical poems, Humans, a 200+ Human Beingèd Hymn To Humanity, is a work in progress.

Daniels' poems, paintings, manuscripts, and memorabilia are archived at The Poetry/Rare Books Collection of The University Libraries, State University of New York at Buffalo; the Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry; the Ohio State University Libraries; the British Library; and the Mata and Arthur Jaffe Collection of Books as Aesthetic Objects. Selections from his body of work are featured online in a variety of zines, blogs, and collections.

Daniels' work has been featured in exhibitions and galleries on three continents. He describes a web artist as "a human or a machine that pours out his/her/its soul on the internet." His book, The Gates of Paradise is available at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.