M F Drummy Member Member since 2023

Where do you prefer to do your creative work?

I find myself "doing creative work" pretty much wherever I am/go - but am most comfortable sitting at my laptop in the basement of our townhome writing/editing/recording because it is rather quiet with few distractions.

Do you read literary journals and magazines regularly? If so, which are your favorites?

Yes. Rattle, Only Poems, Rawhead, Allium, Meetinghouse, Frogpond.

Who are your literary (or artistic) heroes?

Frida Kahlo, Rimbaud, Diane Seuss, Bob Dylan, Georgia O'Keeffe, Bob Hicok, T S Eliot, Cormac McCarthy, Andrea Gibson, Basho, Randy Brooks, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Patti Smith, Ian McEwan, Mary Oliver, Jane Hirshfield, Kat Lehmann, Maria Giesbrecht, Maggie Smith, Andrea Cohen

If you could only take one book on a ten-year voyage, what book would you choose?

Right now I would choose Diane Seuss' "frank: sonnets". I cannot stop rereading this exquisite collection of explosive modern poetry - finding inspiration from it every time I pick it up.

How much of a typical day (or week) are you able to dedicate to your creative work?

I would say that pretty much every day I am able to dedicate some time to my "creative work" - whether that may entail brainstorming lines and phrases and titles or actually creating something on my phone or laptop or editing/recording my work or submitting it for publication.

What makes you procrastinate when you could be doing your creative work? What are your strategies for finding focus?

I don't really feel as though I'm ever procrastinating with my creative work. It's all very organic for me. I absolutely do not want to force anything onto the page.

I like what Diane Seuss said in a recent interview about her writing discipline: "I have never written every day. Not only has the nature of my life not allowed that, I don't think it would be my jam even if it was. I write in my head daily, though, and when I turn to the page, I'm ready to lay down the lines. And I revise as I compose. There's a point of entry, and a period of intuition and understanding, and I need to capture it before it drifts on to some other lucky bloke."

How do you celebrate your successes, such as acceptances? How do you handle rejections and other setbacks?

With equanimity.

How much time do you spend reading for pleasure or edification?

Comes and goes. Sometimes several hours a week, oftentimes much less than that. But I try to read something edifying or creative by someone else at least once a day.

Do you have a personal creative style? How would you describe it?

Organic mindfulness. I try to be open to everything in as nonjudgmental a way as possible and to pay attention as best I can to the smallest details of the natural world and in a macro way to relationships and culture and political events.

Where do you find inspiration?

Everywhere.

What single creative achievement are you most proud of?

Acceptance of my poem "Ageless" by Rattle as part of its monthly ekphrastic challenge back in the fall of 2025.

If you could choose to be born in any era, which one would you choose and why?

The here and now is fine with me......

What advice would you give to a young, budding writer (or artist) with less experience than yourself?

Stay awake and pay attention. Listen/look/learn.

For your first draft (or sketch), do you prefer analog or digital tools, or a mix?

Not sure what is being asked here. 99.9% of my creative work starts out either on my phone or laptop. Occasionally I may write something on a piece of note paper but that is very rare.

Do you incorporate generative AI/LLMs into your creative process? If so, how?

Nope. Never. Don't even know what an LLM is......

What would you like your epitaph to say?

He may have been born bitter but he hung around long enough to write a decent poem or two.