Darnell Bland Jr

The Demonized Warrior Darnell Bland Jr

The Demonized Warrior is a collection of poetry revealing the author's coming of age through life experiences spanning childhood to adulthood. Driven by the purpose of providing inspiration and understanding to the reader, the poems in The Demonized Warrior discuss battles with personal identity, sexuality, racial stereotypes, negative societal constructs, spiritual warfare, mental and physical abuse from being bullied, abandonment, lack of love from female counterparts, depression, suicidal contemplations and the quest to attain manhood. To offer lighter moments for the reader and convey the message that light exists in the midst of a storm, there are some less emotionally driven poems within the book. The Demonized Warrior is written with a novelist approach through the utilization of traditional and prose poetry.