Dimitrius DeMarco, Rowan College of South Jersey (RCSJ) graduate, published his debut collection of poetry,
A Walk in His Woods, at just 21 years old. Now a Rowan University 4+1 student, double-majoring in English and Writing Arts, DeMarco plans to receive his B.A. and M.A. in 2027.
Dimitrius DeMarco Blazes His Own Trail
With
A Walk in His Woods
Dimitrius DeMarco, a Rowan College of South Jersey (RCSJ) graduate, has been forging his own trail with remarkable momentum. Now a Rowan University 4+1 student, double majoring in English and Writing Arts, DeMarco published his debut collection of poetry,
A Walk in His Woods, at just 21 years old.
“I have this thing where I need to cram as much into my brain as possible or I don't feel useful as a person...," said DeMarco. He describes this as intellectual impatience, but it wasn't always something that he felt.
Growing up in Philadelphia and graduating from Central High School in 2022, DeMarco faced the pandemic-era struggles like so many of his peers. Aside from lockdown and remote schooling, other challenges also weighed significantly on him, and as a result, his grades and motivation were severely impacted.
“I felt like I was behind...," said DeMarco, “... I felt like I wasn't living up to my potential, not doing well in school, and I had some tough circumstances living in Philly. A lot of this has been an effort to turn that around."
After emerging from those setbacks, DeMarco took a gap semester and moved in with his aunt in Glassboro, N.J. His cousin Jeffrey, a fellow RCSJ graduate, showed him around campus, eased his nerves, and helped him map out a new direction.
“It was one hundred percent the catalyst," he explained. “It needed to happen. I needed to not be very good for certain years to propel myself forward and re-find academic motivation and just motivation for life."
So, in January of 2023, DeMarco hit the ground running. He began his classes at RCSJ, transformed his academic record, and re-discovered his love of learning. English composition became foundational for him as an English major, and to his own surprise, he took a liking to public speaking, even as someone who tended to be more reserved.
“I discovered the fact that you can prepare, and there are tools that make you good at public speaking. I realized, oh, hey, you're not introverted, you just don't know what you're doing, so that class really helped."
DeMarco also shared his favorite courses at RCSJ: “It was quite easily Andrea Vinci's classes – the writing classes."
He specifically enjoyed Creative Writing: Nonfiction, where students were tasked with writing allegory – taking real stories and changing elements to be more fictional.
“When I first started teaching Dimitrius, I knew he belonged in that [Writing Arts] community. His writing wasn't just to complete an assignment — it was to explore who he was as a person and what his experiences meant," shared Dr. Andrea Vinci, “He crafted characters, both fiction and non-fiction, that delved deep into the complexities of our personalities, and he wrote poems that gripped you, as you read them with lines that resonated on a personal level. I often remember having very little feedback at all for improvement when I was grading his work, because the pieces were already perfect."
Recognizing his talents, Vinci suggested DeMarco transfer to Rowan University and join the Writing Arts 4+1 program to keep cultivating his abilities.
“I found out about the 4+1 program two years ago, after talking to Andrea Vinci..." recalled DeMarco, “... As soon as I found out the 4+1 was an option, I decided I wanted to go for a master's degree."
DeMarco's love for writing and prose finally solidified his segue into Rowan University when he participated in one of Rowan University's spoken word poetry nights.
“The first poetry performance I got to do there was when I was still a student at RCSJ. I found a flyer for it on Instagram. It was like the day that I followed the Rowan accounts because I'd just gotten accepted [to Rowan University]...," DeMarco shared, “I performed a poem that I wrote in Andrea's class, and Cherita Harrell, the professor who hosted it, eventually said, 'Hey, you should be in our writing program'."
After earning his associate degree from RCSJ in 2024, DeMarco transferred to Rowan University in what he could only describe as a happenstance. He declared his dual major and began his journey in the accelerated Rowan University Writing Arts 4+1 program, planning to earn his bachelor's and master's in just two more years of schooling. As if that workload wasn't enough, DeMarco also took on substitute teaching.
“It's a nightmare, but I would go insane without having the workload," DeMarco explained, “It gives me something to focus on. I'm very much of a Type A personality these days, so I kind of need that. If I don't feel like I'm making progress, I don't feel super good."
When the summer began, DeMarco found his workload to be too light, so he took on the personal project of adapting his poetry into a gift for his mother: “It started as a Mother's Day gift. My mom's always been a big fan of poetry, and she's the one who read it to me in my infancy... We had a tenuous relationship after I moved out, and it was sort of our language to communicate through poems. Eventually, we patched things up completely. I had about 60 or 70 poems and a bunch of concepts I hadn't even touched yet, and I was like, I'll put them in a little notebook for my mom."
Once he gifted his mother the collection, she fell in love with the pieces he crafted and asked for more, leading DeMarco to take on the project as a refined collection of poetry. He broke various poems into chapters, centered themes around his lived experiences, and finally published
A Walk in His Woods by the end of the summer.
“It was around that time that I was having some really heavy poetic influences — just from classes. I found out self-publishing was an option, and I was like, okay, what if I took this and seriously compiled it and polished it... It was almost like too much not to do anything with, so I just put it out into the world."
Though
A Walk in His Woods is written from DeMarco's perspective, many of the themes explore universal experiences such as growth, love, and missing home.
He encourages readers not to view his work as absolute: “I am not an authority on any of this. I'm just a human. We're all being human beings for the first time. I'm just doing my best – trying to be nuanced... Everything is so polarized and devoid of meaning. I'm looking for meaning that isn't entrenched in someone else's dogma."
As he continues his journey, DeMarco plans to publish a few poetry chapbooks through traditional publication, then release a sequel to
A Walk in His Woods, where he will bring the themes to a close. His third book will be a prose novel focusing on his lived experiences in the same non-fiction allegory style he wrote during his time at RCSJ.
He shared his current influence as a writer is his education: “The more I learn, the more tricks I pick up... Writing and identity are so interwoven, so when my identity changes and my knowledge changes, my poetry changes along with it."
His goal for the future is to continue his education to the doctoral level, earning his Ph.D. in English with a specialty in poetry and poetics. After doing so, he plans to teach at the college level.
“I would teach at RCSJ, I would teach at Rowan, I just want to teach."
If there is one thing DeMarco wants all readers to consider from
A Walk in His Woods, it isn't one of his poems, but rather, the last line of the author's note: “In a world that is so hell bent on destroying itself, the only real combatant is creation."
For those interested in learning more about RCSJ's English program, visit
RCSJ.edu/CCPA.
