Drummond was born in
Itabira, a mining village in
Minas Gerais in the southeastern region of Brazil. His parents were farmers belonging to old Brazilian families of mainly Portuguese origin. He went to a school of
pharmacy in
Belo Horizonte, but never worked as a pharmacist after graduation. He worked as a civil servant for most of his life, eventually becoming director of history for the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Service of Brazil. Drummond drifted towards communism at the start of
World War II and took up the editorship of the
Brazilian Communist Party's official newspaper,
Tribuna Popular, but later abandoned the post due to disagreements over censorship, which Drummond staunchly opposed. Drummond's work has been translated by American poets including
Mark Strand and
Lloyd Schwartz. Later writers and critics have sometimes credited his relationship with
Elizabeth Bishop, his first
English language translator, as influential for his American reception, but though she admired him, Bishop claimed she barely even knew him. In an interview with
George Starbuck in 1977, she said, "I didn't know him at all. He's supposed to be very shy. I'm supposed to be very shy. We've met once — on the sidewalk at night. We had just come out of the same restaurant, and he kissed my hand politely when we were introduced." ==Style==