Review by Jami Macarty
In More Beautiful Than The Dead, Danny Bellinger crafts an “anthem” to his family and neighborhood, set against the turbulent backdrop of 1960s America marked by racial violence and war. His poems question allegiances, mourn an “unforgiving / world,” and cherish the sense of belonging found in backyard gatherings, on porch steps, and at neighborhood haunts. As Bellinger writes, “The war was over, but nobody could tell you who won…”
The chapbook’s twenty-one poems span odes, portraits, elegies, contrapuntal, and prose forms. Accompanied by the soulful sounds of Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, The O’Jays, Johnny Taylor, The Sensational Nightingales, Isley Brothers, and The Temptations, Bellinger moves between the worlds of the living and the lost. His “funeral company” includes a “cantankerous aunt,” a “half-dead brother,” “The Prince of Kingsway Projects,” and icons “Kennedy, King, Bobby, and Jesus.” In lines that go off like “sparklers and cherry bombs,” Bellinger balances the bitter and the sweet, bringing alive a past he wants to “get off [his] chest.”
In the end, Bellinger’s More Beautiful Than The Dead is not just a reflection on hard times, but a testament to the resilience found in memory, music, and family. His poems remind us that even amid personal loss and social upheaval, beauty can be salvaged — and shared — from the everyday moments that never quite leave us. This chapbook lingers “in wonder,” echoing the voices of the past, inviting us to listen closely and hold our history a little tighter.
More Beautiful Than The Dead by Danny Bellinger. Black Sunflowers Poetry Press, June 2025.
Reviewer bio: Jami Macarty is the author of The Long Now Conditions Permit, winner of the 2023 Test Site Poetry Series Prize (University of Nevada Press, 2025), and The Minuses (Center for Literary Publishing, 2020), winner of the 2020 New Mexico/Arizona Book Award – Poetry Arizona. Macarty’s four chapbooks include The Whole Catastrophe (Vallum Chapbook Series, 2024), 2025 finalist for the bpNichol Award.
