Special Powers and Abilities is a futuristic, stunningly imaginative poetic exploration of superheroes, religion, and myth.Inspired by The Legion of Super-Heroes, a comic series about a group of teenage superheroes in the future, McDaniel’s poems morph superheroes into religious and mythological narratives. Using a range traditional forms—versets, kennings, and sonnets, his poems consider the history of how we look at the future and takes on an almost Talmudic complexity.

“These poems are like their comic book sources in many ways, all of them smart and most of them touching, but in one way most of all: pick it up and you won’t want to put it down.”—Stephen Burt

January 2013 | 100 pages