The Pony Governor by Darren C. Demaree is a series of politically charged poems that challenge shallow leadership and attack the abuse of power at the hands of those in charge. While at times aggressive, and with a penchant for not holding punches, the collection remains fair, aimed at engagement, redemption, and restoration from brokenness. Demaree addresses issues relevant to all readers attempting to find their way in the labyrinth of modern politics. He maps emotion through the various milieus people find themselves inhabiting under leadership gone bad. Despite the pain and struggle the poems often exhibit, they offer hope for a future free of exploitation, free of underhandedness, free of deception. These poems whisper and shout and ache and quiver. In the end, they stand accusatory and fearless.

Our bodies, our individual and collective bodies, and the separate bodies that together combine to make our systems, ecological, biological, psychological and technological - these are the bodies that we refer to, these are the bodies that Darren C. Demaree has dance for us on the page; nuanced or naked, dissected, desecrated and decorated; these are the bodies that rise and swell to the touch of the poet's pen.