Hurricane

Alan Britt

Rivers, Lamps, Insects

Rivers,
lamps,
insects control darkness
with their
jellyfish voices.
Whistles resemble
widely scattered
shards
of childhood
overflowing
the brain
this August evening.
Night
rubs
its bluejay feathers
against a white wire fence.
My soul is an egg; crickets
tap enamel
consciousness
while air-conditioners, exhausted,
asthmatic,
slough
the skin
of dead thoughts.
The insect mantra
forms
a silver eye fit
for drowning or exchanging bones
in the
panic
to breathe
one expansive breath
of genuine solitude;
steam
rises
from a river of mercury
flowing
beneath my spine.

ISBN 1-59661-140-5
60 pages/$9

In Hurricane you can hear the breathing of poets like Keats, Rumi, Aleixandre, Blake, Donne, and Marvell. This book reminds us of our rights as residents of Earth: the right to enjoy the simple pleasures the cosmos has to offer, as Britt says in his poem “Earth,” “I’ve grown accustomed to earth.” The brilliance of the images is, as he says, “the spine / of a dream.” Alan Britt is a poet who teaches us to be better poets, to pay attention to the world and to renew our faith in poetry. These poems are like a symphony of crickets that have their own lantern and make the darkness even more beautiful. Britt is a master of the short poem, filled with the beauty of terrestrial vision and precise images. “Is a train a reptile?” he asks. And in another poem he writes, “The moon’s / wild breasts / whitewash / the faded ribs / of a split-rail fence.” A superb book.
—Martin Camps
Author, Desierto Sol: La invencion del mundo

Alan Britt’s poetry is delectable and smooth. He transforms the nature that surrounds him in imaginative ways. He finds new uses for words to convey his passion in psalms for nature. Some poets describe nature, some describe themselves, while others describe a moment. Here we see a poet passing along the contents of his core, describing nature from within. But there is also mystery in his emotions, which makes reading his work exciting. The penetration in his work is seen in the following lines: “There’s a moth / in my / rum, / flailing / the / high seas like a / great American novelist.” His work is profound; he is skillful and eloquent and shows us how flawlessly he helms his universe. With Hurricane, he breaks the boundaries of language—which is what a poet should always do—and takes us through a thought process in which we experience sounds as exalting music that arouses our sensitivity.
—Nilda Cepero
Editor, LSR; author: Bohemian Canticles, Havana Blues

Alan Britt teaches English at Towson University. Recent books include Greatest Hits, Vegetable Love, Vermilion, Infinite Days, Amnesia Tango, and Bodies of Lightning. His poetry has been featured in Steaua, Poet’s Market, Calliope Nerve, Danse Macabre, English Journal, and in the anthologies For Neruda, for Chile and Fathers: Poems About Fathers.