Brotherly Love is a long poem that evokes William Penn's luminous
vision of America and shows what has become of it as the intractable
conflicts of our history--struggles over the land, keeping faith with
the Indians, the uses and abuses of power--threaten Penn's ideal.
Daniel Hoffman began writing Brotherly Love while he was Poet
Laureate of the United States, in 1973-74 (the appointment then called
Consultant in Poetry of the Library of Congress). Widely hailed, the
book was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National
Book Critics Circle Award in 1981. It is adapted as the libretto for
Ezra Laderman's music in the oratorio Brotherly Love, premiered by the
Philadelphia Singers in March 2000.