biography & artistic statement
I am maddox dempsey; I write a lot of poems, some plays—and also take photos, shoot short films. I grew up in Champaign, illinois, and live in Bloomington, Indiana, where I finished a B.A. in English at Indiana University in 2026.
Aside from these pursuits, I have a deep passion for music (although I am not in a band). I also enjoy Japanese movies & cars, critical theory, psychology, pedagogy, admiring art, and going on long walks, looking at the trees.
artistic statement: “Let me make joyfully, cathartically; let me notice the small things, the depth in them; let me attend to that depth, & let that be enough.”
enjoys writing (about): beavers & foxes & deer; gas stations; the people I meet; memory & dreamwork; perfume & candy; lyric poems, prose poems, internal rhyme.
research focuses: critical theory (psychology, phenomenology, literary), pedagogy, environmental & ecological writing, place, structures of feeling, manuscript culture, science fiction
reading: Denis Johnson, Dorothea Lasky, James Tate, Frank O’Hara, Leah Naiomi Green, Ross Gay, Mary Oliver, Aracelis Girmay, Catherine Bowman, Ariana Brown
other areas of expertise: swim instruction, ELL lesson planning, Spanish, Art History, macOS data sanitization + OS deployment
past readings:
Juniper Art Gallery, Bloomington. July 2026.
Indiana University, English Commencement, Bloomington. May 2026.