Nick Demske
BIO:
Nick Demske is a poet, librarian and movement worker who lives in Racine, Wisconsin. His first full length book, which is self-titled, was selected by Joyelle McSweeney for the Fence Modern Poets Series Award and published in 2010. He also had a chapbook published in 2012 by Strange Cage Press called Skeetly Deetly Deet. Nick's work has appeared in Artful Dodge, Colorado Review, Conduit, DMQ Review, Jubilat, the Poem-A-Day series, Spoon River Poetry Review, and many other places. For 12 years, Nick ran the BONK! poetry and music series in Racine, which brought in Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award Winners, National Slam Champions and more. He served for 6 years on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission and helped found the Kenosha/Racine Poet Laureate program in 2011. In 2026, he received the Lorine Niedecker Poetry Prize, one of the eight annual Wisconsin Writers Awards, a program first started in 1964.
PUBLICATIONS:
Nick Demske (self-titled); Fence Books, 2010; Winner, Fence Modern Poets Series
Skeetly Deetly Deet (chapbook); Strange Cage Press, 2012
Poetry
I let the flies bite me when I meditate
because I am a blood abundance
and it is said that when you yield an amplitude
it is right to give
of the surplus
and who among us would not bring forth
a teardrop of hemoglobin
if it would feed a starving beggar
and who among us could not afford
to spare a raindrop in the flash flood
O I saith unto thee,
it is this abundance
which hath bowed our backs
this bounty—
like a price
on our heads,
which hang—
but here have come
mine guardian angels
to alight upon me
and banquet,
to sit at meat
and to make my burden
light
—Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 9, 2021, by the Academy of American Poets
Lovesick Heron Grenade Squawk-Rock Doxology Epithalamium
heron (n.): from Proto-Indo-European *qriq-, perhaps imitative of its cry (compare Old Church Slavonic kriku “cry, scream,” Lithuanian kryksti “to shriek”)
The Heron pumps its hulking wings and
glides across the sky.
I would rather be full of gratitude
than all of this nailbomb shrapnel.
The slim piece of wood
stickin
g out of the river
explodes into a Heron.
We walked right up on it
like some wonderful beggar
asleep in the midst of the minefield.
What?
I was so close.
This close.
As close as you
are to me
right now.
(boom).
I drape my body over you and explode
into a Heron.
I want to get live
as a wire
on a blast jacket.
I want to get live
as a Heron grenade.
I want my fuse
enthused
with You!
I want to be the apple
of your IED
the smart phone
you upgrade into
a deaf
dumb
bomb
I want to spread my wings
against the sky in prayer
This poem is about having your face
blown off
in AWE
YAY-----
---ERRRRRR Thank you, Lover!
Thank you for pumping your wings through my sky!
Thank you for making my hard heart soft as a target!
(pump, pump, pump).
I fold my body over yours.
I absorb the blast and am blessed
with the verily lovesick scream that escapes me.
The verily one you hear begging this moment
whether it be the blast of my vocals or your heart.
Is there a difference?
I am Great. And I am Blue.
I'm prone to prostrate myself upon you
to dash myself upon the Rock of Love
To drink from the brook
of Your book and boom.
I spread my wings.
I don't have any
wings.
I realize this.
Mid
flight.
—Originally published by BODY.