Reviewed by L Lois
Perdido
by MF Drummy
Main Street Rag Press
ISBN: 978-1-964277-53-0, 92 pages, $US15, Sept 2025
Michael Drummy is a poet on a mission. Believing time’s running out, Drummy uses his divination rod to locate what’s already buried. Posed as an every-man, the poet ends up revealing a soul that cries without sentimentalism and coaxes blooms from our common bowl of dust.
Drummy’s debut collection, Perdido, takes the reader through physical and emotional landscapes, revealing the bittersweet beauty of our real and metaphorical deserts. The backdrop of human loss sits behind the comforts that remain: the places we’ve been, the memories we hold, our loving relationships, and hope’s constancy glimmering at the edges.
Unafraid of irony, Drummy’s dry humor and emotional insistence for witness are his yin and yang. His poetry reminds the reader that we are the continuation of what we think we’ve already lost. In this paradox, hope finds a crack to worm through.
…I have pushed up against, and sometimes through, boundaries // of my own creation / or those that, for whatever reason, appeared before me / seemingly out of // nowhere…(28)
Perdido opens with the tongue-in-cheek, universally identifiable “I Think We Can All Agree That Puppy Mills Are a Bad Idea”. From there, forty poems flow, building a personal world, inviting the reader to join in the journey through devastating pronouncements, landscapes haunted by love, immortalized destinations, and undergirding sufficiency that appears for us to grasp. Drummy’s optimism shines through without sticky tainting; these pages turn gently, persistently, right through to an authentic and compelling end:
…They could make the water. / They could bring it to us. / Would / we drink? (47)
In “Polvadera Creek”, Drummy summons the mystique of the eminent Jorie Graham in his efficacious word choices, creating a tableau of thoughtful call-and-response. With strong emotion and clear narrative, the spotlight is on poetry’s power to communicate quickly and deeply. Drummy reminds us of Graham’s observation: time is a large but finite ocean, and we do well to ponder it carefully.
Put on your seatbelt, as we’re called to join the poet in his travels. With the lightest of bags packed, flit along a range of canyon experiences and desert observations: friends and family, mixed with sorrows and stunning topography. The story unfolds as this collection documents life lived to the fullest, even when pain bleeds through.
Capping his enviable debut year, Drummy collected 2026 Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. His work received Rattle publication honor, and individual poems were selected by a broad range of literary publications including Anti-Heroin Chic, Meetinghouse, Eunoia Review, BRAWL, and Prairie Home Magazine.
Prepare to share Drummy’s ride with your eyes and heart wide-open. You’ll be riding shotgun with the windows down, with dusty desert heat blowing across you and the poet. Our world needs more words that are honest and unflinching, art without pretension. We need more poetry, and more Drummy. This is a collection you’ll read, then re-order for a friend. Keep an eye out for Drummy’s sophomore book of poetry, slated for publication through Kelsay Books later in 2026.
I may not be much but I’m all I think about. (61)
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.