Demcak, Andrew. “Night Chant”, Lethe Press, 2011.

Dark as Night

Amos Lassen

“Night Chant” is the perfect title for this collection of short dark poems. There is something about darkness that makes us feel differently and if you ask five people what that is, you will get five different answers. Night brings about fear and a sense if the macabre. The poems disclose secrets that range from violence, hatred, addiction and shock and they reminds us what the cover of night really does.

There is a taste of the erotic and a lot about nature. Demcak writes with a sense of urgency and his descriptions of sex are raw. He writes about men with men, having sex with men and he writes about fantasy. However, above all else he writes of and with passion. That passion is seen in the beautiful use of the English language and how each word seems to be chosen specifically for each poem. Demcak is a master of description and whether he is describing addiction or sex, he gives us all we need to paint a mental picture.

We learn from his poems as he writes about things that happen daily but that we may miss seeing. We hear the poet’s voice which is the voice of the night chants that he writes. The poems stun the reader not just with their beauty but with their wit and their emotion.