My name is John Thomas Allen. I am 23 years old, having lived here in Albany for the majority of my life apart from some travelling here and there. As a result, my imagination is definitely informed by the urban. I’ve been interested in poetry and anything related to it since I was about 14. My chief concern in my own work is returning to the tradition created by poets like Charles Baudelaire, David Gascoyne Andre Breton--the more visionary thing. Modern poets like Franz Wright and Mary Oliver are the ones I find myself most attracted to now. I feel the poet should also have a political function in these times and not live in an ivory tower, which is why I devote a great deal of my time to leftist political activities. I currently work as one of three editors for Breath and Shadow, a magazine and attend college at St. Rose. I have also been published in:Ygdrasil: A Journal of the Poetic Arts, dreampeople, RealEight View, Illiterate Hooligan Press, ThunderSandwich #26, Breath and Shadow, Forever Underground, Falling Star, Nupenz Online, Poetically Speaking, Falling Star, 3 0 Cup Morning, Sein Un Werden, Zygote In My Coffee , dreamvirus, Tipton Poetry Journal, Prism Quarterly, Flutter, and Thick With Conviction.

POEMS

• Cans
• Jose
• Ocular