A Prolific Poet’s Creative Routine Mirrors Sobriety— Writer Diary
Darren C. Demaree is the author of twenty-three poetry collections, most recently “So Much More: Abstracts, Unfinished Sequences, and Political Prose Poems”, (forthcoming from Harbor Editions, November 2024). He is the recipient of a Greater Columbus Arts Council Grant, an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louise Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Best of the Net Anthology and the Managing Editor of Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently working in the Columbus Metropolitan Library system.
This diary represents a week in his life managing the Barnett Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, writing poetry, and supporting his theater-loving kids. He shares how routines, family life, and bursts of inspiration keep his poetic projects moving forward.
Monday, December 4th
5:00 AM: Wake up. Make coffee and grab a protein shake. Work out and ride spin bike in the basement.
6:40 AM: Oldest daughter (Isabelle) ducks her head in the basement to tell me she’s leaving for the school bus to the high school, and I wave from the spin bike. Sometimes she sticks around long enough to hear, “Love you. Have a great day.”
7:20 AM: Make breakfast tacos and coffee #2. Work on edits for first thirty poems from new sequence, What We Called Fruit.
8:00 AM: Make sure kids are dressed and ready to walk to school. Leave for work.
8:30 AM: Open up the library. Get the staff computers ready for the day. Fill printers with paper. Check in the newspapers. Check in the Culture Passes (free passes for the zoo, art museum, etc.) that are available for check-out by library customers. Fix (if needed) and print the schedule for the day.
9:00 AM–11:30 AM: Be the Customer Services Manager of the Barnett Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library system.
11:30 AM–12:00 PM: Eat lunch (oatmeal with yogurt and berries) and do poetry business. Our lunch breaks aren’t paid time, so I catch up on the poetry machinations. Email. Send out poems. Fun things like this diary.
12:00 PM–5:00 PM: Be the Customer Services Manager of the Barnett Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library system.
5:30 PM: Get home to make dinner. Made smashed garbanzo bean fritters with rice and spinach.
6:30 PM: Start to set up the Christmas tree. Find out two of the strands of lights don’t work.
6:45 PM: Stop at Target to look for tree lights on the way to Isabelle’s voice lesson. She has auditions for Hadestown tomorrow. Struck out on the lights. Target only had bright green and purple. We needed white lights.
7:30 PM: Arrive at voice lessons. I get a chance to catch up on personal emails. Got invited to read for the Poets Baseball Card reading on 12/17. Laura Page agreed to paint something new for the Selected Poems book (Now Flourish Northern Cardinal, Selected Poems 2005–2025) cover art that comes out next fall!
8:15 PM: Stop at CVS on the way home to look for Christmas lights again. Victory! Got the lights.
8:30 PM: Home to put the lights on the tree. Will finish the ornaments tomorrow night.
8:45 PM: My night to give meds and read to the six-year-old (Kathryn), so we do those things, and I tuck her in. The twelve-year-old (Thomas) thankfully fell asleep while that happened.
9:00 PM: Watch the end of the first half of the Browns game and then went to bed.
Tuesday, December 5th
5:00 AM: Wake up. Make coffee and grab a protein shake. Work out and ride spin bike in the basement.
6:40 AM: Belle ducks her head in the basement to tell me she’s leaving for the school bus to the high school, and I wave from the spin bike. It’s auditions day for Hadestown! Good luck, Belle!
7:20 AM: Mom’s leftover apple pie and vanilla bean ice cream for breakfast with the second cup of coffee while I write, What We Called Fruit #36, What We Called Fruit #37, and What We Called Fruit #38. Listened to the Explosions in the Sky album “Take Care, Take Care, Take Care” while I write. Using the audio cues of the album to help me set the fence posts for the reader in this book-length sequence. The arch of it currently has it at 172 poems, but we’ll see. Haven’t written that lodestone poem yet for this project yet. That could change the pacing entirely.
8:00 AM: Make sure kids are dressed and ready to walk to school. Don’t have to be at the library until 10:00 AM today, so I start some laundry. Put on The Big Picture podcast while I start in on some housework.
10:00 AM: Get to the library for the first meeting of the day.
12:00 PM: Meeting #2.
2:00 PM: Meeting #3.
4:00 PM: Strange workday with a two-hour break from 4:00 PM–6:00 PM so I can go back and close the library tonight to cover for another manager. Grabbed a sandwich and drink to read the ending of my novel draft (Lisa’s Best Diner) at a place with good food and free Wi-Fi near the library. Checked in with the kids on the phone.
6:00 PM: Be the Customer Services Manager of the Barnett Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library system. No security guard tonight, so I set up my work computer on the floor and hung out with the team.
8:30 PM: Home!
9:00 PM: Put the kids to bed. Emily went to a trivia fundraiser for the elementary school the kids go to, so I’m on solo bedtime duty tonight. Thought about turning the TV on for a bit but got in bed to read instead.
10:30 PM: Bedtime.
Wednesday, December 6th
5:00 AM: Wake up. Make coffee and grab a protein shake. Work out and ride spin bike in the basement.
6:40 AM: Belle ducks her head in the basement to tell me she’s leaving for the school bus to the high school, and I wave from the spin bike.
7:40 AM: Clean up the kitchen and take out the recycling and trash to the curb for pickup.
8:00 AM: Make sure kids are dressed and ready to walk to school.
8:15 AM: Chocolate chip cookies for breakfast with the second cup of coffee while I write What We Called Fruit #39, What We Called Fruit #40, and What We Called Fruit #41. This project is all over the place right now. I’m not sticking to what I mapped out at all. It’s either going to need to be much longer or edited by someone much smarter than me at this point. Still no lodestone poem. Good work, but wild. No deadlines right now, so I’ve got time to fuck around and find out on this one.
10:00 AM: Interview with Becky Tuchs from Lit Mag News about the So Much More collection and my work as an editor for Best of the Net and Ovenbird Poetry.
10:30 AM: Clean the bathrooms while listening to the new 60 Songs That Explain the 90’s: The 2000’s podcast.
11:15 AM: Leave for work.
11:30 AM–2:30 PM: Be the Customer Services Manager of the Barnett Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library system.
2:30 PM: Run to the post office to mail signed copies of So Much More on my meal time. Eat my lunch while I work at my desk upon return.
3:00 PM–8:00 PM: Be the Customer Services Manager of the Barnett Branch of the Columbus Metropolitan Library system.
8:30 PM: Home!
9:00 PM: Finish decorating the tree. Put the kids to bed.
10:00 PM: Bedtime.
Thursday, December 7th
5:00 AM: Wake up. Make coffee and grab a protein shake. Work out and ride spin bike in the basement.
6:40 AM: Belle ducks her head in the basement to tell me she’s leaving for the school bus to the high school, and I wave from the spin bike.
8:00 AM: Make sure kids are dressed and ready to walk to school.
8:15 AM: Chocolate chip cookies for breakfast with the second cup of coffee while I write What We Called Fruit #42, What We Called Fruit #43, and What We Called Fruit #44.
9:00 AM: Took the day off work to go Christmas shopping.
11:00 AM: Grabbed lunch solo while reading Ruthie Fear by Maxim Loskutoff.
2:30 PM: Pick up oldest daughter from high school because I could, and she hates carrying her bass clarinet anywhere.
3:00 PM: Mapped out my trip to a city park in Toledo tomorrow. Need to visit to write a poem about the park for a 5 Poets 5 Parks program they’re doing.
4:30 PM: Took Belle to a “Masters Acting Class” at the Ohio Theatre. She is all the way in as a theatre kid at this point. I love that for her. I took Ruthie Fear to a hotel down the street and read in the lobby for the hour she was in the class.
6:30 PM: Belle and I went home. Emily picked up Bibibop for dinner.
8:30 PM: Bedtime for the kiddos.
9:30 PM: In bed to read more Ruthie Fear until sleep.
Friday, December 8th
5:00 AM: Wake up. Make coffee and grab a protein shake. Work out and ride spin bike in the basement.
6:40 AM: Belle ducks her head in the basement to tell me she’s leaving for the school bus to the high school, and I wave from the spin bike.
8:00 AM: Make sure kids are dressed and ready to walk to school.
8:15 AM: Pecan pie for breakfast with the second cup of coffee while I write What We Called Fruit #45, What We Called Fruit #46, and What We Called Fruit #47.
10:00 AM: Took the day off so I could drive up to Toledo to write a poem about the Blue Creek Metropark for their 5 Poets 5 Parks program they do. Left Columbus at 10:00 AM.
12:30 PM: Arrived at the Blue Creek Metropark in Toledo. Walked around the fishing pond and the mile-long quarry loop. It was bitterly cold, but beautiful and quiet. I was the only one there. I love it when bodies of water freeze, but not entirely, and create this sort of moaning sound. The best one I ever heard was when I went to be a visiting writer at UW-Superior in the winter. Lake Superior talked and moaned the entire time I was there. It was haunting and beautiful, just incredible.
1:30 PM: Sat in the car to take notes for the poem and warm up.
2:00 PM: Left for Columbus.
4:30 PM: Arrived at Belle’s school to pick her up after callbacks for Hadestown.
5:00 PM: Got home to start making dinner. Made loaded baked potatoes with lots of fixin’ choices. Kids went nuts for it.
7:00 PM: Put on the movie Elf.
9:00 PM: Put the kids to bed. My night to read and do meds with Kathryn.
9:30 PM: Fell asleep immediately.
Saturday, December 9th
7:00 AM: Wake up. Make coffee and grab a protein shake. Work out and ride spin bike in the basement.
9:30 AM: Grabbed a second cup of coffee and a cookie to write the poem about Blue Creek Metropark.
12:00 PM: Sent the poem in to the 5 Poets 5 Parks folks.
12:25 PM: Was working on my website when I heard screaming upstairs. I thought it was a giant spider or something, but it was actually squealing with glee… Belle got a part in Hadestown!
1:00 PM: Took Thomas to his friend’s house so he could play Pokemon Go all afternoon.
1:30 PM: Went to Two Dollar Radio HQ for their Warehouse Sale party. They had a big book sale, a special menu, three tattoo artists, and a DJ. It was great. We got some vegan nachos and tacos. Belle and Kathryn split a root beer. Ran into friends Ruth Awad and Eric Shonkwiler, and Two Dollar Radio luminaries Gary Lovely and Eric Obenhauf. I almost got talked into getting another tattoo by Kathryn, who wanted me to get a “K” on my right arm. Almost got the Two Dollar Radio symbol tattoo. Love those folks. Love that place.
3:30 PM: Needed to go to Target to get a birthday present for Thomas’ friend’s birthday party the next day. Kathryn got a clearance gingerbread house for us to make together.
5:00 PM: Emily made dinner, and Kathryn and I started in on the gingerbread house.
6:00 PM: Dinner was delicious, but the gingerbread house completely fell apart while we ate.
7:00 PM: Left the deconstructed gingerbread house on the counter and put on Christmas Chronicles as we continue to mark off seeing all of the kids’ favorites.
9:00 PM: Bedtime for all.'
Sunday, December 10th
7:00 AM: Wake up. Make coffee and grab a protein shake. Work out and ride spin bike in the basement.
9:30 AM: Make breakfast tacos and a second cup of coffee. Read all the new work from this week. Catch up on poetry business emails. Do some promotion about the new manuscript consultations I’ll be offering to folks that want to work with me on their full-lengths and chapbooks.
11:00 AM: Took Belle to the youth group she likes to go to at my mom’s church. Did some work in the lobby while she ate lunch and did activities.
1:00 PM: Got home in just enough time to join up with the rest of the family for the Clintonville Holiday Trolley. Clintonville is our little neighborhood near Ohio State’s campus in Columbus, and they have buses drive folks up and down the main drag to different businesses that have treats, crafts, giveaways, and different Santa Claus(es) for the kids to see. We dropped Thomas off at his buddy’s birthday party, which was in the neighborhood of the first stop.
3:30 PM: Walked from the last stop of the trolley/bus, which was close to our house, and made it home with enough time to grab the other car and go pick up Thomas from his party. Dropped Emily at the other car so she could head back and take a nap. Went up to get Thomas after his party ended.
4:00 PM: Got home to make an early dinner of fried fish sandwiches and homemade fries. Took a little longer than I thought, actually.
5:00 PM: Everybody gets their fill. The lime zest mayo was a favorite on the sandwiches.
6:00 PM: Went to the Clintonville Tree Lighting fun at the Whetstone Recreation Center and outside the Whetstone Library. There were more cookies (pretty sure the kids set a record today), the high school choir was singing (Belle wanted to see her friends—that’s why we got there before the lighting), another Santa Claus.
7:30 PM: Start the bedtime process early since everyone has school/work in the morning. My night to do meds and reading with Kathryn. Belle has trouble calming down because she’s so excited about Hadestown starting tomorrow. Thomas passes out immediately.
8:00 PM: Talk to Emily about reading for Leah Umansky’s Couplet series in New York. I haven’t read there since the book launch for my first book, As We Refer to Our Bodies, more than a decade ago. We’re going to make a family trip out of it. Sneak in something on Broadway since we’re a hardcore theater family at this point. Looking forward to the whole thing.
9:00 PM: A little more Ruthie Fear and then bed.
