"Darren C. Demaree writes with the authority and magic I imagine thrummed inside the prophecies sybils spoke. His is a pen dipped in the inkwell of Ohio clay, and his parchment is the thunderhead of a storm just about to split open. Now Flourish Northern Cardinal should be celebrated as a tremendous achievement--not just the selected works of a poet who has performed at the height craft for decades, but also a cartography of beauty's every corner: devastation and mystery, salvation and love. 'let's tell the children / that we are carried by waves / we spent years making'" -Todd Dillard, author of Ways We Vanish and Ragnarök at the Father-Daughter Dance