Embrace the Fictional Spiral: An Interview with Darren C. Demaree
By Elizabeth Walztoni
Darren C. Demaree's latest book, a collection of prose poems entitled clawing at the grounded moon, was recently published by April Gloaming Publishing.
INTERVIEWER
Just to start off, will you give us an overview of this collection in your own words? How it came to be, what it means to you as an author?
DEMAREE
clawing at the grounded moon came about because I was fascinated by the idea of something of the heavens, something that can overtake mythology and poetry, crashing into our world, but instead of ending it, recontextualizing it. I wanted two exercises in the same project. I wanted to embrace the fictional spiral of the event, see how that evolved in my head, and I also wanted to experiment with the form to see how I could best accompany the story with the poetic undertaking.
That led me to the abandonment of almost all form and the traditional mechanics of writing. It was an exciting project, because it was so different than anything I’d tried before. I didn’t think it would find a home actually, but I was really proud of it by the time I finished. That’s something I’ll carry with me from this project. To keep experimenting no matter what.
INTERVIEWER
What stuck out to me here was the word “recontextualizing”--which is really happening to us all the time, even when we think the world is ending instead. The moon crashing is almost a macro example, though it has unique qualities and provides many new avenues for understanding it (rather than obliterating us). It feels like an allegory at some points--was that conscious on your part?
DEMAREE
Allowing the science fiction angle into a prose poetry narrative immediately produces an allegorical aspect to the book, and I think I found ways to duck in and out of that without stifling the energy of the project. It’s difficult sometimes to avoid pausing or dwelling on “the point” of what you’re writing, but narratively you can’t just spin your wheels there until the reader catches on.
So, I assume anyone willing to go on this journey with me will pick up the same cues that you did and carry that forward to the end of the book. I don’t think there’s any risk in assuming that your reader is an intelligent reader.
INTERVIEWER
I really agree with that last point. Many of the books I love assume the reader’s intelligence and desire to understand. In my experience, that can be a great, sometimes underrated quality of reading fiction--encountering something dense and beautiful that believes in your ability to meet it.
You mention in your dedication that this collection is manic, chaotic, and contains some of the “wildest swings” you’ve ever written. How would you describe your journey assembling and publishing it, perhaps in contrast to your previous works? Was it more challenging to develop and put into the world, freeing in other ways?
I always appreciate books with some unbridled quality to them and wonder about the experiences of an author “letting loose” within a literary landscape that often tends toward the restrained.
DEMAREE
I really let go of all of my poetic tethers on this one. It’s in a different voice than mine. It’s a different narrative, seemingly science fiction, than I’ve ever attempted before. I gave in to the repeated phrases and images. I let them spin and re-spin the poems in different directions as much as possible.
Keeping that on a traditional spine of a book project felt wild to me. I think I pulled it off. It really could have devolved into a nothing project, but it feels like I kept one finger out of ten in control of the energy. If that finger had slipped off, it would have collapsed into itself.
INTERVIEWER
That’s a great point about keeping one finger in control, which is deceptively hard to do. Do you have any advice for writers taking on untethered projects like this one? What helped you to keep the reins?
DEMAREE
I’d say don’t be afraid to lose control completely, and then go back to fix things in editing. The generative part of the process, drafts one, or one and two, need to be forceful and confident, even if that confidence means you produce a terribly flawed first couple of drafts.
I let it loose on this project, but my planning and experience didn’t let it go completely astray. I was expecting to read this one, and think it got completely lost after the first draft. It very much still needed work, but I could see where that work needed to be done.
INTERVIEWER
One more process question: Did this collection develop separately, with pieces coming together, or did you set out from the start with a clear idea in mind?
DEMAREE
I normally map out a long sequence so that I can better control the energy, music, and plot of things. This time I didn’t do a full map. I just outlined the narrative. The poems came along on their own, but I made sure to hit certain themes and narrative aspects as I went along.
INTERVIEWER
This collection focuses on the Midwest, seeming to take place in a world that only contains the Great Lakes region and the moon. I spent my adolescence in Illinois and Michigan and recognized that feeling of living on in the face of a landscape that sometimes feels doomed. At the same time, there’s our desperate hope--the constant cratering yet “we call anything a beginning.”
Did some quality of the region or experience there factor consciously into your setting? What role does the Midwest play in these pieces?
DEMAREE
So often in a “Midwestern Narrative” there is a waiting for real life to begin. Like because we live in Ohio or Michigan or Illinois our lives are contained in a way that just isn’t true. The moon crashing into Indiana is a direct answer to those assumptions. The world changes in the Midwest, the moon crashes there, and the same as it would be if it crashed anywhere else, the adaptations and revolutions begin and are uncontrollable before too long.
INTERVIEWER
I appreciated the occasional lightness throughout--inventing novelties, adjustments, and new beliefs to cope with the moon, that sort of silliness in the path of doom. The thread of defiance here hits home as well. These seem to work together to “redefine the bloom,” as you call it. In your mind, is this collection a fundamentally hopeful one?
DEMAREE
It’s hysterical in all things, including hope. Choosing to embrace the laughter and hope that is constantly around the story was really important to me, because if I didn’t find a way to do that then the weight of it would just stay affixed to the reader’s chest. There has to be movement and energy for any book to be successful. Embracing how hope would be undeniable in these circumstances helped me find the right energy.
INTERVIEWER
Agreed--and we can find it challenging to talk about the hope in the moon-crashing events of our own lives in a way that feels authentic. That’s interesting for me to think about because the hope is what keeps us going, but there’s an urge to hide it, or qualify it, or deny it’s ours. Admitting our hopefulness can be a vulnerable act.
Did you find writing this collection to be a personally vulnerable experience?
DEMAREE
I did. It was surprising. This is so detached from my normal voice that I thought it might give me cover from that vulnerability, but it was there at the end anyway. You find the book. The book finds you. It’s a little annoying sometimes, but it always ends up being true.
INTERVIEWER
It really does. I (mostly) enjoy how little I can dictate the course my own writing takes, and that’s something so special, I think, how the process reveals things we might not have been aware we knew. Do you expect this experience to change your approach or process in the future?
DEMAREE
I learned a lot from the process of writing this book, so I imagine it will inform the next large project I undertake. I don’t know if it will change the approach until I have the framework for the next one all set. Whatever it is, I’ll have to see if this particular approach would hinder or help before I can tell you. It’s another tool to try for sure.
INTERVIEWER
You’ve written an impressive number of books, but it seems like this one is really different. What brought you to the departure/experiment?
DEMAREE
I am in that truly inelegant sweet spot of being prolific, lucky enough to have a few people think my work is worth publishing, and also relatively unknown. I don’t feel an ounce of pressure to produce work that is one way or the other, and following my own creative tendencies to experiment doesn’t come with any repercussions. I can’t really lose readers if I write a weird/fun book like clawing, because there are no expectations that I write one way or another.
It will end up going one way or the other. I’ll be slightly well-known and that will come with some weight to it or I’ll slide back into the zone of having to fight like hell every time I want to get something out there.
Right now, it’s pretty fantastic. I write a weird book I love and get to explore it with fun questions like these. You caught me in the “before it goes one way or the other” time. I appreciate you being here with me in this moment. It feels good.
INTERVIEWER
What’s up next for you?
DEMAREE
I’m under contract for four more books right now. the luxury will be out from Glass Lyre in January of 2023. Neverwell will be out from Harbor some time in 2023. blue and blue and blue will be out from Fernwood Press in November of 2023. So Much More will be out from Harbor in 2024. I’m editing a selected poems book right now that I’ll be ready to show folks in a year or so.
It’s super weird to be coming up on twenty years of publishing. Right now, in terms of new work, I’m slugging it out with my first novel. I really don’t expect to write a new poem for a year or two.
I’ve written too many poems too quickly, mostly because for so long I was writing to get and stay sober, so I’m going to find a new way (for me) to write poems. A way that doesn’t feel like I’m writing for my life. It’s going to take me a while to figure out how to write poems again. That’s just fine. Thanks for asking.
Elizabeth Walztoni's writing appears or is forthcoming in Peripheries, Eclectica Magazine, FRiGG, New World Writing, The Schuylkill Valley Journal, and elsewhere. She is Short Fiction Editor at Five South. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Find her on Twitter @EWalztoni.