Daily Bread: A Portrait of Homeless Men & Women
Author: Jennifer Burd
Publisher: Bottom Dog Press
Paperback:
ISBN 10: 193396426X
ISBN 13: 978-1933964263
This is a book that tells the story of homeless men and women in America and the Midwest (Michigan) by using writing and photographs. It's a strong, good story we need to know.
DAILY BREAD is a simultaneously heart-breaking and heart-warming elegy to the poignancy and tragedy of the homeless. Burd's moving, lyrical prose poems and Strayer's stark and penetrating companion photos eloquently depict the nuances of pride, suffering, and fellowship of the severely impoverished among us. This book depicts how these individuals survive, not only by wearing their 'good cheer like sorrow' (from "Out"), but also by facing each day as best they can.
-Simone Yehuda, Ph.D., author of Thaw and Lifting Water
Review
DAILY BREAD is a portrait in words and images of homeless men and women in one county in Michigan. Out of that mysterious alchemy that weds specificity to universality, it is also a portrait of Anywhere America. The human beings we shun and fear � is it because we know that we, too, could be one layoff, one illness, one happenstance away from homelessness? � have names and presences and stories here. Steve lives year-round in a tent in the woods; Kevin, in an elaborate cardboard hut he�s built. Shirley and Elvis, a couple in their 40�s, sleep in a car and seek yard work on bicycles strapped with tools. They, and many others, are the subjects of this evocatively written and photographed story-cycle of human struggle, survival strategies, and the complex factors surrounding poverty. As Charlene Wielfaert, The Daily Bread of Lenawee Soup Kitchen's founder, sees it, �They�re starved for love as much as they�re starved for food.� -Nikki Louis, Ph.D., Professor of Creative Writing, University of New Mexico
The lyrical images from Daily Bread are beautiful and haunting at the same time, a reminder that those we shut out still do strive for a dignified existence, whether or not we choose to acknowledge them. From the portraits captured here, it is obvious that when we do ignore or dismiss the homeless, it is we who are the losers. Lad Strayer�s images and Jennifer Burd�s poignant vignettes have done an excellent job of capturing the dreams and disillusionment of these persons from time in Adrian, Michigan.
- Jyothi Bathina, author of Dreams Are for Others: Voices of the Children Left Behind
Book Description
Daily Bread: A Profile of Homeless Men and Women
About the Author
Writer Jennifer Burd has worked as an editor, newspaper reporter, and instructional designer, and currently works as a writer and editor at HighScope Educational Research
Foundation in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University
of Washington in Seattle and has had poems published in such journals as The Bellingham
Review, Southern Poetry Review, Modern Haiku and Bridges, as well as the anthology Nobody�s Orphan Child.
A lifelong resident of Adrian, Michigan, Lad Strayer has photographed his hometown most of his life. Strayer began his photojournalistic career in the mid-1980�s with The Daily Telegram, a newspaper serving all of Lenawee County, Michigan, where he continues to work today.
He also has been a regular contributor to the Toledo Free Press since 2006. A professional
photographer for more than 25 years, his work has appeared in galleries and art exhibits in
Adrian and other areas of southeast Michigan.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Daily Bread: Profiles of Homeless Men and Women
