“...the works of your hands, reveal who you are…”
Infernal Speech, Divine Thoughts is a collection of handwritten poems spanning the final years of Kyle Daniel-Bey’s natural life sentence. Daniel-Bey, a co-organizer of the Hamtramck Free School and former juvenile sentenced to mandatory life without parole in 1995, would later be resentenced and released in 2018.
Daniel-Bey prefaces this collection of poems with an autobiographical, self-reflective account of his life and the spiraling years that led him to prison and poetry. In Infernal Speech, Divine Thoughts, Daniel-Bey takes on a range of human concerns; capitalism’s impact on climate, racism, homophobia, xenophobic violence, love, faith and forgiveness. With penetrating observation, Daniel-Bey turns language into a critical lens. This collection of poems presents the reader with our failures and ways through.
“He who travels the storm bringin forth the sunshine.”
Infernal Speech, Divine Thoughts by Kyle Daniel-Bey
Published by Hamtramck Free School / Free School Press
Edited by Kate Chatel
Coordinated by Michael Brown, Bianca Ibarlucea and Jonathan Rajewski
Printed in Mexico City, Mexico by Nocaut
Designed by Iguana and N. Weltyk
First Edition, 2023: 500 Copies
68 pages, paperback with 2-sided poster/jacket
Available in two colors; orange or blue.
Free School Press, 2023
ISBN 978-0-9981122-5-1
