Lyle Daggett -- Presenté

Lyle Daggett, a strong proletarian poet published in our journal and elsewhere died last December. Not only did Lyle write strong, lyrical political poetry, he left a compendium, a veritable library and education on Marxist political poetry via his blog,A Burning Patience. The following is an obit by fellow poet and long time comrade Robert Edwards,

It was in 1978 that I first met Lyle Daggett, and that came about through the poet, Jim Dochniak, when I first moved to Minneapolis from Fargo, North Dakota. Jim had a magazine called Sez which only lasted two issues but had wonderful political poetry in it, and that's when I first read Lyle. There was never any question to me, even then, that Lyle was a singular talent, unlike anybody else in the Upper Midwest, an area full of singular and unique talents. In my opinion, Lyle was one of the most important political poets this country has had in recent times. Although there are an infinite variety of political poems, it should be noted that Lyle often wrote revolutionary poems as opposed to bourgeois protest poems. There are many reasons to read him and, of course, Lyle wrote many other kinds of poems than political ones. Having said that, political concerns were always at the forefront for him, and I think in many ways those were the poems he was most proud of. In a magazine I was later to found, Pemmican, which was highly influenced by Sez, I would publish Lyle for almost twenty years, including his 9 page poem, "communism is a round sun shining." He was a lifelong Union man, and defiant about it. In the early 1980s, Lyle and I were in a Cultural Club, with the publisher, John Crawford of West End. The Cultural Club was an experiment by the Minneapolis Communist Party, of which Lyle and I were both members in those days. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I was working with a couple of coffeehouse/cafes in Minneapolis/St. Paul to host poetry readings and, since I often got to influence the line up, I always offered a spot to Lyle. As is often the case with dedicated and meticulous poets, Lyle wasn't a performer or even the strongest reader, but his work towered above nearly anything else on any given night. These were the kinds of poems you would pull your chair closer to hear. I think in Lyle's work you hear a voice that is fully formed by the idea that political poetry needs to be, first and foremost, good poetry and not simply a ham-handed, tone deaf vehicle for political concepts. In later years, Lyle found a home for his work with Minnesota publisher, Red Dragonfly Press, and I encourage anyone who wants to read Lyle's books to start there. Red Dragonfly will also be publishing in the near future Lyle's last submitted manuscript, Road Song and Annunciation. His sudden and shocking death on Christmas Day, 2018, has left a gnawing absence. I will remember him not only as a greatly talented poet but also as a fierce Lefty whose passion for broad social change never lessened over the decades. I hope there will be many, many more poets who have that same passion because clearly America needs them. But there will never be another like Lyle Daggett.