ANDREW DEMCAK INTERVIEW AT LITERARY MAGPIE

Jory Mickelson has posted an interview he did with me a few weeks ago at his blog:  Literary Magpie.


Check it out here:

LITERARY MAGPIE INTERVIEW

MICROREVIEW FROM STEVE FELLNER: NIGHT CHANT BY ANDREW DEMCAK

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Microreview: On Andrew Demcak's "Night Chant"

Consciously oppressive and morose, Andrew Demcak's new book of poetry Night Chant labors to create what could in lesser hands seem like a queer rewriting of Sylvia Plath.  Demack knows better, although he, too, creates a dreary atonality through intriguing word choices.  Often the work he does here feels strained, but in a good way; he doesn't want any of his triggers to produce a baldfaced narrative.  The titles of his poems --"Rent Boy," "Crossing the Water," "Troll," "Child Killer"-- seem irrelevant; they feel like a random noun someone uttered to rev Demcak up to show his skill.  And there's more than a solid amount of ability here.

For a significant portion of the book, Demcak strains to deconstruct a noun, and then asks us to help him reassemble it.  In the better poems, we feel the labor of that strain--the diction and metaphor pushing the subject in a way that force it to become something one can perceive as new.  Here's some of the fun play in the personae poem "Oedipus Rex": "His lips had lost their sphinx,/ that tired jinx, that nag./...Midnight's middle was not an empty room./My cock was the answer to the riddle."  Or the curiously askew final couplet in "Orgasm vs. Rainbow": "Orgasms are bluster, quick mouthfuls, ogling eyes./But you have rainbows for days after denouncing the clouds."

Occasionally, he doesn't feel like he's straining quite enough; he doesn't deserve the release.  For example, in the less striking poem "Eros": "Inferno, bright flame, the spasm of flesh./ Halos blazing sparks ignite: orgasm."

Demcak's book sometimes feels over-long (close to ninety pages); the exertion required for reading such a lengthy book feels slightly greedy, especially since some of the poems like "Mirror at Forty" and "In Solitude" could be easily edited to highlight some of the best like "Eavesdropper, 1990" and the daring "Mishima Fantasy.".  But still, it's hard to find any place in the the book where there is anything that resembles "a merciless desert here, this page."

Andrew Demcak's Night Chant is available through Lethe Press.

ANDREW DEMCAK @ POETS & WRITERS

My profile at POETS & WRITERS has finally been approved.  I was surprised that the literary journal I used to edit, Inky Blue, was listed in their database.  Oh, the cross-referencing of the web!

ANDREW DEMCAK P&W PROFILE

ANDREW DEMCAK LIVE ON KKUP 91.5FM - JP DANCING BEAR'S TALKSHOW

For those who missed me last week on JP Dancing Bear's radio talkshow, here's the link to the podcast. I read from my new book Night Chant (Lethe Press, 2011) Enjoy!

ANDREW DEMCAK ON J.P. DANCING BEAR'S RADIO TALKSHOW

Out of Our Minds w/J.P. Dancing Bear - Guest: Andrew DemcaK

See the full gallery on Posterous Andrew_Demcak_-_01-04-12.mp3 Listen on Posterous Andrew Demcak is an award-winning poet and novelist whose work has been widely published and anthologized both in print and on-line

ANDREW DEMCAK READS HIS POEM "BLOOD-PLAGUE"

Published in tandem with Didi Menendez and my broadside featuring her marvelous artwork and my poem, Blood-Plague, here's a link to the FREE download recording of me reading "Blood-Plague" at Soundcloud and to the FREE version of the broadside at Issuu.com.

ANDREW DEMCAK READS "BLOOD-PLAGUE"

DEMCAK/MENENDEZ BROADSIDE

ANDREW DEMCAK & DIDI MENENDEZ BROADSIDES

I've been working on a collaboration with the super multi-talented Didi Menendez on a broadside featuring her wonderful artwork (above) and a poem of mine ('Blood-Plague' from my new unpublished book A Birthday Present.) Here's the end result.  Enjoy!

ANDREW DEMCAK & DIDI MENENDEZ BROADSIDE