Alan Britt
Semantic Emotion . . . Rhetorical Quicksand
The problem with sentimentality is that it pigeonholes, thereby
stifles lucidity to emerge from the fiasco, that is if lucidity is
within a lightyear of the fiasco—(I doubt between you and me,
not you and I, despite the red, white and blue ribbon flapping
my worsted wool chest); it's just that sentimentality begets
intolerance (how ironic), and from there who knows where?
So, don the mask of sentimentality sparingly and only when,
absolutely or adverbially, as they say, like when you're trolling
a corporate barbeque donning a pair of intolerable Tommy
Bahamas and positively sinking below rhetorical quicksand.
Bio
Alan Britt has published over 3,000 poems nationally and internationally in such places as Agni,
Bitter Oleander, Bloomsbury Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Christian Science Monitor,
Confrontation, English Journal, Epoch, Flint Hills Review, International Gallerie (India), Kansas Quarterly,
Letras (Chile), Magyar Naplo (Hungary), Midwest Quarterly, Minnesota Review, Missouri Review, New Letters,
Northwest Review, Osiris, Pedrada Zurda (Ecuador), Poet's Market, Queen's Quarterly (Canada),
Revista/Review Interamericana (Puerto Rico), Revista Solar (Mexico), Roanoke Review, Steaua (Romania),
Sunstone, Tulane Review, Wasafiri (UK), and The Writer's Journal.
His interview at The Library of Congress for The Poet and the Poem aired on Pacifica Radio, January 2013.
He has published 16 books of poetry. He teaches English/Creative Writing at Towson University.
ALAN BRITT: Library of Congress Interview:
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/media/avfiles/poet-poem-alan-britt.mp3