Fire Folio
Darren C. Demaree
A Fire Without Light
(Nixes Mate Books, 2017)
A Fire Without Light
(Nixes Mate Books, 2017)
Cover Art: James Turrell, First Light. 1989-1990. aquatints. MOMA
Nixes Mate Books (2017)
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PURCHASE HERE
Fire Folio: A Review of A Fire Without Light by Darren C. Demaree
In Issue Two, Fire Poetry Journal was lucky to feature the poems of Darren Demaree. Striking and authentic, some of our favorites of the poems featured in this selection were a part of this A Fire Without Light series. In the author's dedication, he writes
This book is dedicated to every person that believes empathy is our most important strength, and that those that believe it to be a weakness are the weakest among us. Those people that rally against love and acceptance we will remember, but we will never raise their names in song without the anger they forced into our hearts.
From the first minutes of picking up A Fire Without Light, it was evident that these prose poems all shared a sort of psychic energy. Eschewing the barriers of form, Demaree's careful lines had a certain electricity, this collection never felt too heavy or prosiac. Instead, Demaree inhabits the frustrations of millions of Americans and the collective reckoning with a post-Trump America.
In A Fire Without Light #22 , Demaree writes:
Let me put it another way. We’re imagining hope. We’re
imagining Ohio. We’re forced into belief. We only see
the threats, the tension, and the titles of his lists.
In this collection, Demaree holds the idea of an "American Dream," and shows how this can be defined so differently by varying groups. He holds us all responsible, highlighting the individual struggle with the Trump election, and discusses its outcomes: interpersonal tensions between Trump's supporters and those against, the demographic and economic struggles that make us strangers to each other. In A Fire Without Light #86, Demaree writes "I know most of Ohio wants him to make the world like most of Ohio, but I’m telling you that most of Ohio is dead. [...] I have a dozen relatives that consider Trump a fever dream of a president. This is the first time any of them have experienced a real high. They’re not handling it well."
This collection falls somewhere between elegy and apocalypse, a post-2016 Revelations which serves to remind the reader of the divisions within several splintering demographics, never forgetting that we, the nation, are in ways complicit in the results of this normalization and election of Donald J. Trump. He paints the current American landscape in parallel with its political landscape: Trump as hot and big as the Sun and Ohio as scorched earth, or America as a fallow field, or the trajectory of progress as wild and curving as a river.
But as a father, Demaree never strays too far away from thinking about the country and its future state, aware of the childlike nature of wanting and with handling the aftermath of inevitable disappointment. In this collection, Demaree often calls to the parental relationship, thinking about the place of children in a post-2016 America. In A Fire Without Light #45, the speaker is ..."holding [their] children lightly. I think my wife is catching on that my six torrents have left the riverbed. I was three people this morning. All of them are breathing, and that is the important part. I don’t know which of me will survive these four years."
The poems in this collection have a natural progression but remain grounded in time. Thanksgiving comes and goes. Winter snow falls on Ohio. What remains consistent is the striving for change. What remains is our collective right to vote, and our ability to enact change politically.
In A Fire Without Light #545, he writes:
Everywhere is the distinction between the air and air
supply. I have already been called kindling. That is the
language fire knows. That is the language fire breeds.
Once again we are all searching for the water’s edge.
That’s fine. Stick your heels in the pool. Turn to the
flames. Move with the tide. Become the time. Keep
breathing. Let the fear drown behind you.
In thinking forward, Demaree and his poems work toward survival. For all the anger and sadness that resonates through these fine prose poems, the speaker is not cosigned to doom or melodrama. At a time where very little seems to make sense, in this fiery and earnest collection, Demaree uses his poetic ear to craft protest meditations. Sometimes angry, hopeful, bewildered, and resolute, this collection of poems acts as an uprising of some collective unconscious, a reminder to navigate our complex feelings and relationships to America with power and honesty.
This book is dedicated to every person that believes empathy is our most important strength, and that those that believe it to be a weakness are the weakest among us. Those people that rally against love and acceptance we will remember, but we will never raise their names in song without the anger they forced into our hearts.
From the first minutes of picking up A Fire Without Light, it was evident that these prose poems all shared a sort of psychic energy. Eschewing the barriers of form, Demaree's careful lines had a certain electricity, this collection never felt too heavy or prosiac. Instead, Demaree inhabits the frustrations of millions of Americans and the collective reckoning with a post-Trump America.
In A Fire Without Light #22 , Demaree writes:
Let me put it another way. We’re imagining hope. We’re
imagining Ohio. We’re forced into belief. We only see
the threats, the tension, and the titles of his lists.
In this collection, Demaree holds the idea of an "American Dream," and shows how this can be defined so differently by varying groups. He holds us all responsible, highlighting the individual struggle with the Trump election, and discusses its outcomes: interpersonal tensions between Trump's supporters and those against, the demographic and economic struggles that make us strangers to each other. In A Fire Without Light #86, Demaree writes "I know most of Ohio wants him to make the world like most of Ohio, but I’m telling you that most of Ohio is dead. [...] I have a dozen relatives that consider Trump a fever dream of a president. This is the first time any of them have experienced a real high. They’re not handling it well."
This collection falls somewhere between elegy and apocalypse, a post-2016 Revelations which serves to remind the reader of the divisions within several splintering demographics, never forgetting that we, the nation, are in ways complicit in the results of this normalization and election of Donald J. Trump. He paints the current American landscape in parallel with its political landscape: Trump as hot and big as the Sun and Ohio as scorched earth, or America as a fallow field, or the trajectory of progress as wild and curving as a river.
But as a father, Demaree never strays too far away from thinking about the country and its future state, aware of the childlike nature of wanting and with handling the aftermath of inevitable disappointment. In this collection, Demaree often calls to the parental relationship, thinking about the place of children in a post-2016 America. In A Fire Without Light #45, the speaker is ..."holding [their] children lightly. I think my wife is catching on that my six torrents have left the riverbed. I was three people this morning. All of them are breathing, and that is the important part. I don’t know which of me will survive these four years."
The poems in this collection have a natural progression but remain grounded in time. Thanksgiving comes and goes. Winter snow falls on Ohio. What remains consistent is the striving for change. What remains is our collective right to vote, and our ability to enact change politically.
In A Fire Without Light #545, he writes:
Everywhere is the distinction between the air and air
supply. I have already been called kindling. That is the
language fire knows. That is the language fire breeds.
Once again we are all searching for the water’s edge.
That’s fine. Stick your heels in the pool. Turn to the
flames. Move with the tide. Become the time. Keep
breathing. Let the fear drown behind you.
In thinking forward, Demaree and his poems work toward survival. For all the anger and sadness that resonates through these fine prose poems, the speaker is not cosigned to doom or melodrama. At a time where very little seems to make sense, in this fiery and earnest collection, Demaree uses his poetic ear to craft protest meditations. Sometimes angry, hopeful, bewildered, and resolute, this collection of poems acts as an uprising of some collective unconscious, a reminder to navigate our complex feelings and relationships to America with power and honesty.
Darren C. Demaree is living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children. He is the author of seven poetry collections, including A Fire Without Light (Nixes Mate Press) and the forthcoming Two Towns Over (Trio House Press). He is the winner of the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the recipient of ten Pushcart Prize nominations. Currently, he is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry.