In defense of the goat that continues to wander towards the certain doom of the cliff - by Darren C Demaree (Paperback)

About the Book

An exploration of the importance of imagination and creativity. Choosing to create with or against the human elements of this world is vital to our survival.

Book Synopsis

in defense of the goat as it continues to wander towards the certain doom of the cliff is an exploration of the importance of imagination and creativity. There is always a momentum to the day, but choosing to create with or against the human elements of this world is vital to our survival. The ocean (space and time) always gets us, but those brave enough to attempt flight before it does through artistic and humanist practices can change the tides before they splash. This book-length poetic sequence tracks the path from the town/city into the fields, through the field parties, and all the way to the edge and beyond of the cliff. Working with the metaphor elaborated on in Mary Ruefle's On Imagination, the footprints of the goat and those tracking it are celebrated in this book. This goat has escaped the metaphor of Ruefle's goat in the attic, and is on an artistic parade towards the end of the endeavor. The individual poems in this book twist and energize the common practices of the artist. The stillness is abandoned. The ferocity is given to the practice and it entitles those practicing it to revel away from the eyes of the non-artistic community they've left behind, and to imagine more freely than they ever have before. As artists we smell the salt when there is no sea, and the sea is there because we do. This book is a grand gesture towards the idea that we need a thousand more books written in the fields before they disappear.

Review Quotes

"Darren C. Demaree's collection is a blanketed conversation with a dear friend. in defense of the goat that continues to wander towards the certain doom of the cliff meanders and weaves-Demaree is a philosopher who confronts our 'imperiled belief / that knowledge grazes this world / without falling off this world.' In this novel in verse, each poem searches for meaning, each poem is a universe that demands we 'view the world view the word view the world.' This is a collection of the imagination, a collection that insists 'we can belong in this world' and there is a 'joy that comes with flapping one's arms.'"

- Allison Blevins, author of Cataloguing Pain

"in defense of the goat that continues to wander towards the certain doom of the cliff is a radical, brilliant masterclass in metaphor, a collection of poems that engages deeply with the 'vital kinship of the invisible empire.' Every poem here begins and ends where 'two-thirds of the landscape / has been ruined and two-thirds / of the animals are unknown.' These poems are brief, mighty and bold; they ground us while insisting that our imaginations must not be forsaken and that we must not be at odds with the world around us. Darren C. Demaree invites readers into 'the remaining wilderness' which is being 'asked / to grow a fungus that can save us.' When we find 'too much god in the honey, ' how can we remain rooted? If 'life is a miracle that can't / fly, ' in defense of the goat that continues to wander towards the certain doom of the cliff shows us how to go as far as we can on foot."

- Joan Kwon Glass, author of Night Swim