About DS (in his own words)
I’ve been writing for ten years and taken my success as it comes. Spent five years after college trying to write like Charles Bukowski, and then five more trying to unlearn the bad habits he imparted. I currently live in Dublin after four years of travel, with my recent fiancée and our elderly dog, where I work as a maintenance dispatcher and try to control my subconscious desire to take the bus to any airport and fly to anywhere else.
What role does poetry play in your life?
I don’t have the attention-span for prose, so mostly what I both read and write is poetry. I’m unfortunately prolific – I tend to spend one or two nights a week drafting new poems, and most nights (especially lately) editing and submitting to magazines.
Can you mention some of your favorite books or authors?
Probably my favourite poet at the moment is Frank O’Hara, though admittedly that tends to change on a weekly basis. I’ve been reading a lot of Diane Wakoski lately, and some Eva HD. There’s also a long-dead poet called Li Po who wrote some stuff that I’d put up against any modern writer.
Do you have any personal poetry moments you’d like to share?
A line from one of Frank O’Hara’s poems is something that I latch onto constantly:
One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.
Frank O’Hara, ‘Meditations in an Emergency’ (1957)
It’s the kind of combination of lyrical line mixed with a throw-away flippancy that I tend to aspire to. If I could ever put together a line that good I’d probably retire from writing poetry.
How to get in touch with DS: find him on Twitter at @diarmo1990