Two Poems by Alan Britt

SURBURBAN SOLITUDE

Streetlamp with Swedish hair like beams of

straw fueling Van Gogh gas chandeliers,

enters this habitat, this habitat primitive

though ideal for isolation.

Old terrier in distress awakens neighborhood

dogs curious to an emergency

exploding emeralds like fireflies

from antique clocks lining the horizon.

PINEAPPLE

Pineapple relaxing the boulevard,

minding its pineapple business.

Artichoke releases gob

of spit, outlawed in 1870—

exhausted TB law.

Pineapple grows testacles,

chews a nail

& expresses 9-millimeters

from his rectum.

Bombers on the committee

to elect committees——

Sorry for that.

Sink.

           .

               .

                    .

                         .

      unless

                     you       had

                    other  plans.

Dine in a dumpster;

cleave until cleaving no longer

holds a candle to the dumpster.

Silver wanderer.

Alan Britt's interview at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem (http://www.loc.gov/poetry/poetpoem.html#alan-britt) will air on Pacifica Radio http://www.pacifica.org/index.php in January 2013. His interview with Minnesota Review is up at http://minnesotareview.wordpress.com/. He read poems at the World Trade Center/Tribute WTC Visitor Center in Manhattan/NYC, April 2012, at the We Are You Project (WeAreYouProject.Org) Wilmer Jennings Gallery, East Village/NYC, April 2012, and at New Jersey City University's Ten Year 9/11 Commemoration in Jersey City, NJ, September 2011. His poem, "September 11, 2001," appeared in International Gallerie: Poetry in Art/Art in Poetry Issue, v13 No.2 (India): 2011. His recent books are Alone with the Terrible Universe (2011), Greatest Hits (2010), Hurricane (2010), Vegetable Love (2009), Vermilion (2006), Infinite Days (2003), Amnesia Tango (1998) and Bodies of Lightning (1995). The Poetry Library (www.poetrymagazines.org.uk) providing a free access digital library of 20^th & 21^st century English poetry magazines with the aim of preserving them for the future has included Britt’s work published in Fire (UK) in their project.   Britt’s work also appears in the new anthologies, The Robin Hood Book: Poets in Support of the Robin Hood Tax, by Caparison, United Kingdom, 2012, American Poets Against the War, Metropolitan Arts Press, Chicago/Athens/Dublin, 2009 and Vapor transatlántico (Transatlantic Steamer), a 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. Readings & Presentations: Panel Chair for Poetry Studies & Creative Poetry for the PCA/ACA Conference 2008 in Boston, Ramapo College in Mahwah, NJ (2009 & 2012), the WPA Gallery/Ward-Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River, NY (2008), Ultra Violet Studio, Chelsea/NYC (2008 & 2009), White Marsh Library, Baltimore (2011 & 2012), Enoch Pratt Free Library (Canton Branch) Baltimore (2011), Pedestal Magazine Reading at the Writers Center, Bethesda, MD (2012). Alan currently teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University and lives in Reisterstown, Maryland with his wife, daughter, two Bouviers des Flandres, one Bichon Frise and two formerly feral cats.

Links: Ragazine: http://ragazine.cc/2012/08/sohar-on-brittreview/ and http://ragazine.cc/2012/08/1wtc/