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Night Chant
The terse, dark pieces in Andrew Demcak's fourth collection of poems occur under the cover of night. Into a richly macabre cityscape, the voices in these poems expose their secrets, from the desire of unbearable addictions to the shocking violence of hate crimes. In their spareness, with their array of surprising images, these poems are bold in their brevity. They converge into the urgent whispered voices we hear following us in the dark-our own voices and the voices of those like us. They become night chants.
- GenresPoetry
90 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2011
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32 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Demcak
14 books169 followersAndrew Demčák is an award-winning, American poet and novelist, the author of six poetry collections and eight Young Adult novels. His books have been featured by The American Library Association, Verse Daily, The Lambda Literary Foundation, The Best American Poetry, Kirkus Reviews, and Poets & Writers. He was selected to be the keynote speaker for the California Library Association's annual conference to celebrate his contributions to LGBTQ+ Young Adult literature.
He has been a finalist for the prestigious Dorset Poetry Prize, the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, The Crazyhorse Poetry Award, and the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence in Poetry. He did win the Three Candles Press Open Book Award, selected by the phenomenal poet, Joan Larkin, for his first poetry collection, Catching Tigers in Red Weather (2007).
He has been a finalist for the prestigious Dorset Poetry Prize, the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, The Crazyhorse Poetry Award, and the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence in Poetry. He did win the Three Candles Press Open Book Award, selected by the phenomenal poet, Joan Larkin, for his first poetry collection, Catching Tigers in Red Weather (2007).
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 8, 2011
Charles Jensen on Night Chant: "The terse, dark pieces in Andrew Demcak’s fourth collection of poems occur under the cover of night. Into a richly macabre cityscape, the voices in these poems expose their secrets, from the desire of unbearable addictions to the shocking violence of hate crimes. These spare poems, with their surprising images, are bold in their brevity. They converge into the urgent whispered voices we hear following us in the dark—our own voices and the voices of those like us—into night chants."
October 10, 2011
Visiting the World Unveiled by the Poet
In one of his best poetry collections to date Andrew Demcak, in NIGHT CHANT, manages to suffuse erotic thoughts with weavings from nature forms that make his poems not only sing taboo airs but lifts them to the realm of universals, songs that everyone can intone without prejudice. He is a master of making beautiful the raw core of sexual encounters - men with men, men with fantasies, coital imitations - and he paces his passions with the seduction of the gloaming as it makes preludes of encounters that could only be sung as night chants.
Where Demcak shines most brightly is his uncanny sense of description of acts, be those acts of the passion of sensual satisfaction or the act of being birthed, the spectre of addiction, the loss of loved ones or simply noting natural forces of seed and flowering. But as with describing all poets it is best to let their words take the focus:
CROSSING THE WATER
A slit is open in the promising bay.
It's you,
a sunless siren,
no longer keeping the advice of her pale fishes.
The boat of your body enters the deep,
its shadow ferried from spirit world.
A slap, a cry.
Day fills with hurried oars.
Doctors ring you like paper lanterns,
their guiding lights on the black lake.
Your form shakes from the darkness,
crossing the water.
EAVESDROPPER, 1990
Notice his damp curtains as the drafts pass.
He happens upon those topics like need, absently.
His queer kind of alchemy.
A predecessor marked by cashmere scarf, red smear on his neck.
Upon sicker bone, dying bones he piles.
Malicious firebug loose in someone's distractions.
So-and-so's lover tested positive!
That harmful sort of rubbish he reports.
OEDIPUS
Night opens over the street like a wound.
His mouth is wet.
Spring crickets count off in the blackness.
He whispers and gets in bed.
A phone ringing somewhere is answered.
The house groans and settles down on its back.
His swollen feet poke out beneath the quilt.
I read his rose scars like riddles.
Tonight he'll enter me like a blind man;
as if I were his mother, and he could love her.
FORGETTING
Its voice depleted; the mouth one tight stripe.
Belly swollen like a globe, the eater of cells.
Thoughts will never swim nor increase.
Eyes and nostrils, hollows in fierce limbo.
The worm's euphemism is perfected.
The man crawls behind the emptied woman,
no longer hearing their child's guttural sobs.
Absence will amplify each silence.
The baby, their flesh proxy, cool and dead.
LAST WORDS
His head rolls, the moon dumb in its soft box.
Relation of his distant roots to finite space.
A sky clouding over, gone pillowy.
Hinges purr; the coffin spits out his face.
This man lustrous: gossamer and copper.
Soul steaming through a thumbhole in the grave.
My granddad bandaged, a mute parcel
in the peculiar sarcophagus, rouged with bruises like fruit.
Wherever Andrew Demcak's experiences, intuition, and skillful writing takes us, we are the more informed, the more understanding of places/things we may not have known - or if they were familiar, we see and feel them anew. Grady Harp, October 11
In one of his best poetry collections to date Andrew Demcak, in NIGHT CHANT, manages to suffuse erotic thoughts with weavings from nature forms that make his poems not only sing taboo airs but lifts them to the realm of universals, songs that everyone can intone without prejudice. He is a master of making beautiful the raw core of sexual encounters - men with men, men with fantasies, coital imitations - and he paces his passions with the seduction of the gloaming as it makes preludes of encounters that could only be sung as night chants.
Where Demcak shines most brightly is his uncanny sense of description of acts, be those acts of the passion of sensual satisfaction or the act of being birthed, the spectre of addiction, the loss of loved ones or simply noting natural forces of seed and flowering. But as with describing all poets it is best to let their words take the focus:
CROSSING THE WATER
A slit is open in the promising bay.
It's you,
a sunless siren,
no longer keeping the advice of her pale fishes.
The boat of your body enters the deep,
its shadow ferried from spirit world.
A slap, a cry.
Day fills with hurried oars.
Doctors ring you like paper lanterns,
their guiding lights on the black lake.
Your form shakes from the darkness,
crossing the water.
EAVESDROPPER, 1990
Notice his damp curtains as the drafts pass.
He happens upon those topics like need, absently.
His queer kind of alchemy.
A predecessor marked by cashmere scarf, red smear on his neck.
Upon sicker bone, dying bones he piles.
Malicious firebug loose in someone's distractions.
So-and-so's lover tested positive!
That harmful sort of rubbish he reports.
OEDIPUS
Night opens over the street like a wound.
His mouth is wet.
Spring crickets count off in the blackness.
He whispers and gets in bed.
A phone ringing somewhere is answered.
The house groans and settles down on its back.
His swollen feet poke out beneath the quilt.
I read his rose scars like riddles.
Tonight he'll enter me like a blind man;
as if I were his mother, and he could love her.
FORGETTING
Its voice depleted; the mouth one tight stripe.
Belly swollen like a globe, the eater of cells.
Thoughts will never swim nor increase.
Eyes and nostrils, hollows in fierce limbo.
The worm's euphemism is perfected.
The man crawls behind the emptied woman,
no longer hearing their child's guttural sobs.
Absence will amplify each silence.
The baby, their flesh proxy, cool and dead.
LAST WORDS
His head rolls, the moon dumb in its soft box.
Relation of his distant roots to finite space.
A sky clouding over, gone pillowy.
Hinges purr; the coffin spits out his face.
This man lustrous: gossamer and copper.
Soul steaming through a thumbhole in the grave.
My granddad bandaged, a mute parcel
in the peculiar sarcophagus, rouged with bruises like fruit.
Wherever Andrew Demcak's experiences, intuition, and skillful writing takes us, we are the more informed, the more understanding of places/things we may not have known - or if they were familiar, we see and feel them anew. Grady Harp, October 11
November 30, 2011
Very cool author and book. Brilliant poems -- do yourself a favor and check out this book.
October 10, 2011
Paul Lisicky, author of The Burning House, said it best: "The poems in Andrew Demcak's NIGHT CHANT are as conscious of the ghosts in the room as they are the living bodies. Through myth, they look for the secret life behind Eros with daring, candor, wildness, and wit. If you want simple consolation, go elsewhere. If you want to read poems that are dazzling and true, see here." - Paul Lisicky
December 26, 2011
Acute lyrics traverse a harrowing odyssey.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews