WE ARE YOU PROJECT
Alan Britt served as judge for the 2013 The Bitter Oleander Press Library of Poetry Book Award. His Poet and the Poem interview for the Library of Congress aired on Pacifica Radio in January 2013. His recent interview by The Minnesota Review is available. Other interviews include Ashvamegh…The Literary Flight (India): http://www.ashvamegh.net/author-poet-interviews and Lake City Lights: http://lakecitypoets.com/AlanBritt.html. He read poetry and presented the “Modern Trends in U.S. Poetry” at the VII International Writers’ Festival in Val-David, Canada, May 2013. Other readings include the 6x3 Exhibition at the Jadite Gallery in Hell’s Kitchen/NYC, December, 2014; the Union City Museum of Art/William V. Musto Cultural Center in Union City, NJ, May, 2014; and the (World Trade Center) Tribute WTC Visitors Center in Manhattan/NYC, April 2012. He also coordinated and read poetry for the We Are You Project at the Fountain Street Fine Art Gallery in Framingham, MA, June, 2014; the historic Maysles Cinema in Harlem, NY, February 2013; and the Wilmer Jennings Gallery in East Village/NYC, April 2012. He is Poetry Editor-in-Chief for the We Are You Project International. Britt has been nominated many times for the Pushcart Prize.
Bio: Alan Britt
(Photo by Charles P. Hayes)
Alan Britt teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University. His recent books include Parabola Dreams: Poems by Silvia Shchibli & Alan Britt (2013), Alone with the Terrible Universe (2011), etc. Essays recently in The Cultural Journal, Clay Palm Review and Arson. Interviews and poetry (selected) recently in Steaua (Romania), Latino Stuff Review and Poet’s Market. Other poems (selected) in Agni, The Bitter Oleander, Bloomsbury Review, Bolts of Silk (Scotland), Christian Science Monitor, English Journal, Epoch, Fire (UK), Flint Hills Review, Fox Cry Review, Gallerie International (India), Gradiva (Italy), The Great American Poetry Show, Greensboro Review, Kansas Quarterly, Karamu, The Kerf, Letras (Chile), Magyar Naplo (Hungary), Midwest Quarterly, The Minnesota Review, Pacific Review, Pedrada Zurda (Ecuador), Puerto del Sol, Queen’s Quarterly (Canada), Ragazine, The Recusant (UK), Revista Solar (Mexico), Rosebud, Second Aeon (Wales), Sou’wester, Square Lake, Sunstone, Tulane Review, Writers’ plus the anthologies: Emergency Verse: Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State, by Caparison an imprint of The Recusant, United Kingdom: 2011; The Poet's Cookbook: 33 American Poets with German Translations, Forest Woods Media Productions/Goerthe Institute, Washington, DC: 2010; American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, Chicago/Athens/Dublin: 2009 and Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), bi-lingual anthology of Latin American and North American poets, Hofstra University Press/Fondo de Cultura Económica de Mexico/Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos de Peru, 2008; Fathers: Poems About Fathers,St. Martin’s Press: 1998, and La Adelfa Amarga: Seis Poetas Norteamericanos de Hoy, Ediciones El Santo Oficio, Peru, 2003. Recent readings: SUNY at Albany, NY, 2006; Hendrick Hudson Free Library, Montrose, NY, 2006; Towson University, Towson, MD, 2006 & 2011; PCA/ACA Conference, Boston, 2007, WPA Gallery at Pound Ridge Reservation, Cross River, NY, 2008; Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) reading and workshop, Baltimore, MD, 2008, 2009, 2010 & 2012; Ramapo College (Mahwah, NJ), presentation and reading, 2009 & 2012; The Goethe Institute, Washington, DC 2010; New Jersey City University, Jersey City 2011; The Writer's Center, Bethesda, MD 2012.
WE ARE YOU
We rise on jaguar wings orbiting
a bronze waist before crossing
the torch of Liberty.
We sling ruthless reds, bruised
golds & tropical greens across
hurricanes chewing the Atlantic
coast off Cuba.
We surface the Amazon
with webbed toes.
Freedom's eyeglasses fogged we
enter each holy house as though
entering a proverbial hall of mirrors,
aware the moon nursing Manhattan
skyscrapers also splinters the icy peaks
of Peru, ignites Caymans in Colombia,
the Quichua in Ecuador, yucca lightning
in Mexico, plus Bolívar's bones inVenezuela.
We chase amnesia thermals, sometimes,
but mostly we prefer heirloom tomatoes,
lean meats, exotic spices, multigrains
& a dozen-year-old California Syrah
after an exhausting day of painting our
dreams across a canvas called America.
(©Alan Britt 2011)
ALIENS "R" US
(For Gabriel Navar)
He slides a flame beneath a silk strand
of Wallendas rope that snaps above the cavern.
Web billows: children tumble, Aunts, 3rd Cousins
& Las Lloronas who prowl Magic Moons.
An RV made of oxygen & blue light descends
a gypsy camp in Manhattan. Out bounces aliens
with rubber arms & melaleuca breath—when
one alien takes this little Roma with black moons
for eyes & brown knuckles dipped in coffee.
The hour palpable as the alien's fingers
vine the copper wrists of Angelita
& blow a kiss into her brain, thus,
switching on lights in the barrio,
tugging cotton string & brass chain bulbs
in kitchens known as Hell, illuminating
every museum & cathedral, every gas station,
every city hall & boardroom of the bored,
each stitch in the throat of every mockingbird
that stumbled over love, every pronoun soaked
in olive oil, each filament of astral
atom dancing down 185 in Oakland,
US 1 in Miami, 42nd in NYC,
while sweeping paint across every solid surface
in the known universe.
(© Alan Britt 2012)
TRANSFORMATION
(For Duda Penteado)
We the people, indigenous atoms
splintered & chipped by cannon balls
but reborn as bursts of wild Gloxinia
or Formosa bougainvillea.
Point is, we decorate a tapestry
of quantum genocide—inch by
inch, law by law.
Point is, the Brazilian jaguar,
eyes of granite arrows symbolizing
visions of egalitarian pulp
& palmetto angels strolling rain
forests not yet suffocated
by political cigar smoke.
But we breathe the same air,
piss in reservoirs owned by
OGX & CCX, aka EBX.
Point is, we love our ancestors,
our feral uncles, cousins, angelic
mothers & dreaming sisters.
Point is, despite our conch shells
powdered into doubt
& deconstructed from birth,
we remain vibrant, celebratory
Brugmansia trumpets
of wisdom scouring the roots
of terra Brasilia, Father Earth!
(© Alan Britt 2014)