You might know Devin Freeman-Robinson ’25 from his endearing Phoenix articles. As a former Campus Journal editor, he’s written on Swarthmore tropes, surviving campus hate, and the epidemiology of the Swat plague. Aside from his effortlessly humorous journalism, Devin has written poetry for over a decade.
“I just opened up the notepad on my phone and began writing silly little poems … they weren’t even super interesting, but I just felt a need to write – I always have,” Devin said.
After reading his work in advance, it’s fair to say that he has come a long way from “silly little poems.” Floored by his work’s complexity, I couldn’t wait to learn more about how they were imagined and realized.
When we finally met, I started with a quintessential question, “Why do you want to make art?” Everyone has a different fuel for their artistic drive, and it is crucial for truly understanding an artist’s inarticulable spirit.
Devin replied, saying that his primary drive is simply the desire to express himself. Besides that, he credits one of his middle school teachers in cultivating his creative expression. Rather than typical course content, teaching one or two Shakespeare plays and focusing on a preconstructed curriculum, his teacher gave students a lot of freedom.
Under this class structure, students could seek out and analyze poetic form independently for the class and write things that interest them in return for extra credit. Devin took advantage of these opportunities, and his teacher’s infectious excitement for writing gradually grew on him.
When I asked why he gravitated toward poetry, Devin chuckled, “To be honest, I’m a little lazy, so writing a whole novel or even a short story is unbelievable.” But he quickly clarified with something more revealing, “But I think that also, my thoughts are often brief. So I like to look at the most essential elements.”
Devin shares a perspective familiar to many artists. However, his perspective expands past his creative expression and into his broader philosophy. As an honors psychology and English literature student, even in his science courses he searches for specific aspects that critically impact the human experience, as he does in poetry. He roots his perspective in the search for meaning inherent to most art, but is simultaneously highly focused, precise, and analytical. It’s fascinating, and decidedly characteristic of a Swattie.
Eventually, I transitioned into asking Devin about his poetic form. He often situates his work in liminal spaces. Those dreamlike moments just before sleep, or meditations on death and decay in the natural world. “[I’m interested] in states of consciousness generally,” he says, “and things that feel separated from the traditional human experience … how those can elevate, or explain, the human condition.”
That fascination shows in his recent work, much of which he’s developed through courses like Advanced Poetry and a Directed Creative Writing Project (DCWP). One particularly rich influence for Devin was a directive reading on African American and Indigenous American eco-culture. “So a lot of these poetic influences, at least recently, have been natural in focus – in terms of the idea of death, and my larger body of work accumulating.”
Devin never handles these themes, though heavy, with detachment. Instead, he writes with rawness and emotional clarity. “I think not only of my own vulnerability, but the vulnerability of others,” he tells me. “This self-disclosure of sorts is a means of understanding a common topic.”
Despite his clear dedication to the craft, Devin doesn’t frame himself as a polished, publication-chasing poet. “None of my poems are super college,” he says with a laugh. “None of which I’ve submitted to a journal.” But that doesn’t mean they aren’t meaningful. In fact, it’s the opposite: “I think I want poetry to be a common practice … a way to structure these more difficult moments into periods of realization and lessons.”
In a time when we’re so often asked to produce, publish, and package everything, Devin’s approach feels refreshingly grounded. His poetry doesn’t aim to dazzle. It aims to witness, to transform, and to connect. Whether he’s meditating on liminal consciousness or simply letting the natural world inform his images, Devin is a writer who treats poetry not just as an art form, but as a way of being in the world.
