“I believe writers that are worth their salt have a heightened sense of awareness.”
– Demond J Blake
Editor’s Note: The following interview contains the personal reflections of the interviewee, including discussion of mental health, anxiety, adult life challenges, and societal observations. The views expressed are those of the interviewee and do not represent the editorial stance of this site.
Demond, thank you for joining this conversation. To start, could you introduce yourself, share a bit about your background, and what first led you to writing poetry?
My name is Demond J. Blake. I am a writer from Southern California by way of Las Vegas. What led me to writing poetry was poets like Hart Crane, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Kerouac, and Bukowski. Their raw honesty inspired me to write my true feelings that I kept mostly under wraps.
Your poem Comfort was recognized with a BREW Poetry Award. What does this recognition mean to you personally and creatively?
It’s validation after years of rejection, struggle, bad jobs, worst bosses, and next to no one believing in me. Creatively, it lets me know that I’m doing something right with my little prose poems.
The poem examines anxiety, reassurance, and relational dynamics. How do you approach turning personal experiences into poetry that resonates with others?
I believe writers that are worth their salt have a heightened sense of awareness. That awareness allows us to be sensitive to things that the average person is told to ignore. But as writers, we can’t ignore anything. So, I take snapshots of my life or however I’m feeling and try to express them as purely as I can. Since we’re all on this crazy planet together, I figured my anxieties aren’t too far from other people’s.
Imagery of everyday actions, dialogue, and small gestures is central to Comfort. How do you choose the details that carry the emotional weight in your poems?
The majority of my writing, from books to short stories to poems, comes from the simple and endless complexity of life. Throughout my day it’s like little breadcrumbs are being dropped and my mind is picking them up. Then the funniest, weirdest, and occasionally tragic things that stick with me end up becoming poems.
The poem balances vulnerability with humor and observation. How do you navigate tone, rhythm, and pacing when exploring sensitive subjects?
To paraphrase a saying, “a spoonful of humor keeps the sadness down.” In my everyday life as a wage slave in the process of breaking free, I’m always using humor to keep the horrors of the day job from swallowing me whole. Like a good boxer, you set the pace with the jab, next work the body to soften them up, then when you’ve got them right where you want them—BAM!—knockout punch. Same goes for my poems that’re humorous but are dealing with emotional, real-world issues we all have.
What milestones—whether publications, awards, or personal breakthroughs—stand out as significant in your creative journey?
Getting published in Coolest American Stories 2025 has been the biggest milestone of my burgeoning career. Then getting invited to their booth at AWP in Los Angeles to sign copies was pretty surreal. Next would probably be finishing my first essay, The Spiritual Matrix, completing my first novel Slackass, and a collection of short stories entitled Beetlebums in the past couple of years, which has been especially gratifying. All that’s left is to get them all published.
Many readers connect with poetry through relatable emotional experiences. What do you hope someone takes away when reading Comfort or your other work?
Anxiety can be a crippling thing, but that doesn’t mean you have to let it cripple you. Also, whatever you’re experiencing, you aren’t nearly as alone as you may think.
Are there recurring themes, questions, or motifs you find yourself revisiting, and what draws you back to them?
Everything I write comes from a deep well of dissatisfaction. Being a child of the ’80s, we were promised this amazing future, but from where I sit in 2025, it’s curdling like milk in the sun. Another theme I consistently come back to is: in an age when there are no real rites of passage, how do you really know you’re an adult? It’s a theme I keep coming back to because I feel like my generation is standing on shifting sand.
How has your experience traveling and writing about diverse communities influenced your approach to poetry?
When you meet people from different walks of life, you get to dig their influences and perspectives. Trading stories in rundown motel rooms, traveling with vagabonds, etc.—that type of mind expansion can’t help but bleed into the poetry. Writing a poem about a bad day at work seems silly after you’ve spent a few nights with guerrilla filmmaking in the subways of Los Angeles, dodging the police.
Looking ahead, what themes, projects, or experiments are you most excited to explore in your writing?
Spirituality, morality, and the general malaise I notice in people when I’m out and about in the world. Too many people are on autopilot in their lives and are too uninspired to snap out of it. I want my next projects to shine a light on this and help people see that the sky is the limit, not the other way around.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“Anxiety can be a crippling thing, but that doesn’t mean you have to let it cripple you.”
– Demond J Blake
Links
- Connect with Demond J. Blake via LinkedIn here
- Know more about the BREW Book, Blog, and Poetry Awards here
Share Your Insights
We’d love to hear your thoughts! Share your perspective in the comments:
- Which line or idea from the interview resonated with you the most?
- How do you see personal experiences shaping creative work in your own life?
- Have you ever used humor or reflection to cope with challenges, like the poet describes?
Alignment with the UN SDGs
- SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being): Promotes mental health awareness through discussions of anxiety and coping strategies.
- SDG 4 (Quality Education): Encourages learning from literature, creative expression, and self-reflection.
- SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities): Highlights diverse experiences, societal observations, and empathy across different communities.
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