Stephen Behrendt

Born and raised in northeastern Wisconsin, I spent 45 years in Nebraska but have never been anything but a Wisconsinite in spirit and in attitude. Happily, I have returned to Wisconsin, where my new residence overlooks a nature reserve that fills the days (and nights) with abundant delights, comforts and inspirations. I've invested all my life in the literature, art and culture of British Romanticism, and that professional indulgence as an interdisciplinary scholar and teacher of Romanticism at the University of Nebraska naturally and inevitably colors my own poetry. But the influence goes both ways, and that feels very right, since creativity and imagination take many (often indirect) routes to wherever it is they are finally going. My poetry has always applied the innate musicality of language to my observations on the worlds, inner and outer, in which we pass our teeming days, and where wonders are still to be found, if only we will permit oursleves the space to listen, to see, to feel.