Dlugos worked on Ralph Nader's Public Citizen newspaper, which led to a successful career as a fundraising consultant and copywriter for liberal and charitable organizations.
In 1976, Dlugos moved to Manhattan, where he became a prominent younger poet in the downtown literary scene centered around the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church.
His poems were praised for their innovation and wit, their appropriation of popular culture (as in his crowd-pleasing "Gilligan's Island"), and their openly gay subject matter.
Dlugos's friends during his New York years included Joe Brainard, Donald Britton, Jane DeLynn, Brad Gooch, and Eileen Myles.
Of the latter, critic Marjorie Perloff wrote, "This is poetry of extraordinary speed and energy that fuses fact and fantasy, dream and documentary.