Daily Inspiration: Meet Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum

Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum.

Andrew, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I wrote my first poem at 14 while working at the Produce Place, a neighborhood health food market in Sylvan Park before it became Sylvan Park. I’d just gotten caught smoking behind the store and was making right by cleaning up under the corn bin where stray tomatoes and bell peppers were turning to goo. I was fishing an apple out with a push broom when a fly-infested ear of corn wobbled out and, with it, a voice, otherworldly and beautiful, said: “What if I were this rotten ear of corn?” That absurd, vivid line became my beginning.

Since then, I’ve spent over 30 years chasing a life in poetry. I’ve published three books—Ghost Gear, Visiting Hours, and Fight or Flight—each marking a phase of my life: growing up in late 80s Nashville, losing a childhood friend to suicide and journeying to healing, and rebuilding my life post-divorce by living in a tent for two years, crisscrossing the country in search of love and family.

I’m the founder and host of the NASHVILLE POETRY PARTY, a raucous and moving monthly event mixing verse, games, music, mysticism, and community. It’s like no other poetry event in the world. Season 2 launched May 29, we hold parties the final Thursday of each month until Halloween. I’m also the editor of PoemoftheWeek.com, now approaching its 20th year. In Spring 2026, I’ll release Twenty Years of PoemoftheWeek.com: 100 Poems by 100 Poets—a landmark anthology of 21st-century American verse.

I joked after publishing Fight or Flight that I was retiring. No more poetry for me. I’d attempted to fit into the academic life and had failed. I’d published three books yet had no job prospects. Poetry was great and all, but poetry as a way to make a life didn’t seem to be working. Who was I kidding? Time to move on.

That retirement lasted a year. Maybe 18 months. Despite my dis-love of poetry, in the midst of my daily family (one wife, three babies, one one-hundred-pound dog) responsibilities, somehow poetry found its way between soccer practices and peanut butter and jellies and swim lessons and sexy time.

I’ve tried to walk away from poetry more than a dozen times, but it never lets me go. Despite the challenges—academic rejection, career confusion, the loneliness that can come with living in a genre built on vulnerability—every time I think I’m out, poetry pulls me back in.

Alongside writing, I’ve made a living as an editor and ghostwriter. I’ve helped write memoirs, novels, graduate applications—and once, I ghostwrote poetry for an escort putting herself through a PhD at NYU while taking care of her ailing father. Unorthodox? Controversial? Sure. But it helped her—and me—write our way to better lives.

Another client of mine, Stuart Lord, is a survivor of sexual assault that began in childhood. His book powerfully recounts his experience with sexual assault at the hands of a family friend and within the Boy Scouts. Collaborating with him from the initial concept to the final draft has been an unforgettable experience.

I build bridges: between lyric and narrative, between pain and play, between audience and artist. Whether I’m editing a poem, producing a party, or reading work that makes me publicly cry—I’m still that kid under the corn bin, trying to make things right.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Writing a poem is a struggle in itself—an act of ongoing repair. When I work on a poem, I ask: What’s broken here? What needs to be fixed, tuned, or cut out entirely? Sometimes a poem reads too much like a short story with line breaks. That’s a problem. So I bring in music—assonance, alliteration, metaphor—whatever makes it sing.

But solving one problem in a poem usually creates another. It’s whack-a-mole with language. And eventually, you stop fixing and let the flaws be. My theory? A poem is complete when the poet has solved all the problems they can. The rest—the mess left behind—that is the poem. Just like life. We aren’t the struggles we’ve overcome. We are the struggles we have not overcome.

Lately, my biggest struggle isn’t craft—it’s identity. Am I a poet or an editor? A professor or a ghostwriter? A husband? A father? A producer of rad literary events? The answer is yes. But how to wear all those hats without losing your head—that’s the question I live daily.

I still dream of being a professor, even though I’ve soured on the institution itself. I was raised to believe that the life of the mind—and especially the poetic mind—culminated in academia. Yet after applying to more than 100 academic jobs and never receiving a single interview, I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that that door may never open. So I built my own.

The poetry world can be harsh. Poets are often wounded people. And the old saying, “hurt people hurt people,” holds true. There’s exclusion, cancellation, plagiarism, petty gatekeeping. I’ve felt the sting of that. Though I’ve built friendships and found a few collaborators I trust deeply, the dream of a large, loving poetry community? For me, that’s mostly gone.

Still, I write. I edit. I ghost. I host. I make poems and make space for others to do the same.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m most proud of building a literary life that doesn’t follow the traditional path. When I let go of the dream of being a tenured professor, I redirected my literary skills into editing and ghostwriting—helping others find their voice while staying true to my own. From graduate school applications to novels to show bibles, I’ve worked behind the scenes on all sorts of projects, some of which have transformed lives.

I’ve done all this while writing and publishing three books. Ghost Gear chronicles my upbringing in Sylvan Park in the late ’80s and ’90s, a time and place that shaped much of who I am. Visiting Hours shares the story of one of my childhood best friends who died by suicide in downtown Nashville and the long, difficult grieving process that followed. Fight or Flight tells the story of my search for identity after divorce—a journey that took me across the country, living in a tent, and ultimately led me back to Nashville, where I began dating my future wife and became stepfather to our three crazy amazing children.

Tragedy, trauma, and healing: These are the threads that run through much of my work, but I don’t write the same poem or the same book twice. I work hard to vary both what I write about and how I write about it. Ghost Gear is made up mostly of narrative poems; it reads almost like a short story collection in verse. Visiting Hours is operatic, composed of highly lyrical poems that carry the emotional arc more through music and tone than through traditional narrative. Fight or Flight is my most stripped-down book—short lyric-narratives written in the clearest, simplest language I could find. My goal with that book was to create something my mother could read and love, something my neighbors, my bartender—my Anyone—could understand without having to work too hard.

To move people—whether through my poems or the spaces I help create as a producer, editor, and host—is the most meaningful part of what I do. My work, from verse to Twenty Years of PoemoftheWeek.com to the Nashville Poetry Party, and my life—my wife, my children, and the writers I help find their voice—are all part of the same blessing. I’m deeply grateful to do what I love, help others do the same, and do it all without surrendering to academia’s pound of flesh.

Any big plans?
I’m deep in the weeds editing Twenty Years of PoemoftheWeek.com: 100 Poems by 100 Poets—an book I’ve been building toward for two decades. It’s both a celebration and a reckoning, showcasing the evolution of American poetry across generations. That project has required me to revisit hundreds of poems, reach out to hundreds of contributors and presses, and reflect on how far this labor of love has come.

Beyond that, I’m committed to expanding THE NASHVILLE POETRY PARTY—growing it into a national platform that bridges performance, literature, and community ritual. I’d love to take the party on the road and connect poetry communities across cities the way musicians tour. I’ve thrown parties in LA, Denver, Philly, Chicago, and Kansas City so far. More are to come.

I’m also happy to be working on my fourth collection of poetry, Unsubscribe, which explores masculinity, fatherhood, and how it is we choose to engage or disengage from various aspects of contemporary American life in pursuit of peace. Many of the poems reflect on family life and what it means to be a devoted husband and father. A few are erotic. Others are rather dangerous critiques of societal dysfunction. Many of the poems are funny or at least strive to be. It’s a risky book, but that’s what I’m drawn to right now. What am I doing if I’m not taking risks?

I also hope to continue helping others tell their stories—especially those who’ve been silenced, marginalized, or discouraged from writing. My editing and ghostwriting work is a big part of that mission. No matter the medium, my goal is to make more space: for poetry, for truth, for transformation. For us.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://AndrewMK.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themeanderingpoet/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrew.mcfadyenketchum
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrewM-K
• Other: https://www.poemoftheweek.com/npp