Alan BrittI grew up in southeastern Florida where hot summer days sizzled and summer nights' humid lips ofjasmine pressed against my frosted bedroom jalousies. An aspiring athlete, I wanted to play for the Milwaukee Braves-I thought HankAaron was poetry in moton. Well, songwriter for a garage band, later I found myself a college sophomore writing poetry and a foundingmember of a group of poets and artists known as the Immanentists. Though somewhat eclectic, we were a blend of European Surrealismwith a Native American sensibility who believed that through language and paint we could attain spiritualfusion with the natural world. After reading The Immanentist Anthology, the great French poet, Yves Bonnefoy, said that Immanentism was the most exciting poetry he had seen from the US in decades. What a thrill! I remained in contact with Yves until his death in 2016. Eventually, I drove a yellow Ryder truck from West Palm Beach to Baltimore to attend the graduate Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University where I made a beeline to the National Gallery in DC to marvel at the wondrous creations by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Monet, Manet, and Odilon Redon. Baltimore became my heaven with snow. Inspired by Andrew Marvell, William Blake, Walt Whitman, Federico García Lorca, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Eunice Odio, Sándor Kányádi, Kristina Ehin, plus hundreds of others, I now write poems about anything and everything. Along the way I've learned that to write poetry is to love, andto love is to write poetry.-Alan BrittAlan has published 25 books of poetry and teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University. Read More Read Less