the luxury

"One part ode and one part elegy to the last shimmers of a disappearing world, the luxury names the wonder and ache of a planet on a collision course. These poems bear no titles or punctuation, their form mirroring natural collapse with each vignette. But this is not an invitation for hopelessness. While Darren C. Demaree interrogates the guilt of having needs that 'are / bringing forth the ocean,' and laments that even the poet must 'recreate the forests / on the page which is made / out of trees,' he deftly catalogs the gifts we've been given - 'this was already / heaven' - as an invocation of what might still be saved. Though the impending climate crisis seems incomprehensible in scope, Demaree's words are a reminder that it's really about our home and each other. What else is worth fighting for?"

-Ruth Awad, author of Set to Music a Wildfire