Reviewed by L. Lois
Defensible Spaces
by Michael F Drummy
Kelsay Books
ISBN: 979-8901469705, June 2026, 122 pages, US$34
Melancholy, haunting, wistful on the sad end of the spectrum — content, confident, wise. This is Michael Drummy’s new collection of bittersweet poems, Defensible Spaces. The silly years of youth have passed, and the late summer flowers are waving. Sobriety is our watchword as twilight approaches. The poet’s eye is taking it all in.
love songs of universal longing / in the local dialect ("encocado", 72)
Poetry is a friendly shoulder to lean on. A tear, remembering our loved one’s pain. The smile returning with the birds gathered on the tree limb. We sit on the porch and rock — in another era, we’d have a pipe and a banjo. Now, we nurse our coffee and cruise our phone, looking for comfort. We might find a poem’s solace. A poem to transport us to another year, a sweeter love, a faraway place, a defiant sunset we didn’t know we needed so much.
In his first collection, Perdido (Main Street Rag, 2025), Drummy was warming us up. In this longer, richer, denser book, he starts where he left off — easing us in through opening poems, setting a view of the savannah’s flora and fauna. Gradually, he reveals the deeper layers that sit under the surface, hidden away for years. The poet trusts his reader — offers his pain and, in doing so, heals ours.
Naked & unafraid, I sing out the trauma & / rapture of a new earth: /On this day, neither calendar, nor clock, // nor boundary map, ("When I Poke the Earth, It Pokes Me Back", 66)
This year’s release is a full-length collection that proclaims the beauty of the desert, of marriage, of close friends, and slow movement. There are hills to watch, barking prairie dogs, cactus and tumbleweeds. Part way through, we realize: the dirge has been called, here is death and its shadow, grief.
the mountains // rising like ghosts on the flat horizon. / Walking astride the slickrock— /a specter, ancient, grieving...("When I Poke the Earth, It Pokes Me Back", 65)
Drummy’s poem, “Bellwether”, ends with the poignancy of deep appreciation, even when everything’s already been lost. To move on isn’t denial, it isn’t rage, it isn’t even bargaining to try to understand — moving on isn’t about moving on at all. It’s about gratefulness and observation, about what remains behind.
...the thick ice in / Horsetooth Reservoir breaking up, / cracking in the warmth of the March / sun, while the last galaxies of / tenderness were shared between us. ("Making Love in a Double Wide", 23)
Drummy keeps the reader guessing about what’s coming ‘round the corner. There’s something spectacular in a length of rope in the garage, an ill-suited hat, lavender petals, the night-guard our dentist insists will better us. There’s a surprise off Interstate exit 243, and Drummy’s caught the scent. If you’re married and wonder what the language of love sounds like, “Memento Vivere” is a gift to cover every anniversary you’ve got left in you.
Wander across the Americas. Visit the Inca and the Eastern US. Go for a walk in Colorado. Listen to Spanish words on a warm wind you recognize. Remember “Making Love in a Double Wide”, years after visiting the “Cheap Moon” where everyone still believed in a fraying dream.
...I can never be angry with you— // just a little wistful at times: /I was hoping for a hug. ("Antonito", 64)
Here is an American poet, educated in the East, unspooling memories on the lands of the South and the West. An adopted cowboy who can sing a song, remembering the bitter with the sweet, reminding what it means to be loyal, faithful, strong, and true. There is tragedy and there’s humor; two truths flow from one pen. M F Drummy expresses exuberant optimism, despite it all, a deep pleasure in life lived. Kelsay Books, home of the beautiful and those soon to be discovered, finds another surprise and we bow in thanks.
...tremulous // waxy flowers brilliant as solar flares. Then / we lost it all, in pursuit of an indulgent dream / of the ignorant, the conceited... ("Mary’s Cactus", 69)
About the reviewer: L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. She is pivoting into her grandmother-era, figuring out why her bevy of adult children don’t have babies, while prioritizing writing, publication, and arts-related volunteerism. Her poems have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, The Brussels Review, Washington Square Review, Hanging Loose Magazine, Chiron Review, Poetry Breakfast, among other publications. L. Lois is an Associate Member of the League of Canadian Poets, is part of the editorial team at Quibble Lit, and freelances as a business feature writer and poetry workshop leader. A selection of her published work is linked at https://poeting.my.canva.site.