'I think the spirit left me or I didn't need to do it anymore.'īut then the universe seemed to intervene, which is to say, magazines began folding or slowly pulling back on well-paying assignments, and he returned to the craft of poetry. 'I could make $2,000 writing magazine pieces,' he said. He is also the author of the book 'Reality Police: The Experience of Insanity in America,' based on his experiences pretending to be ill in order to see what a state-run mental hospital in Poughkeepsie was like on the inside, as well as the book 'The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage.' He also wrote the introduction to a series of historical adventure books, including 'The South Pole: A Narrative History of the Exploration of Antarctica.'Īs his journalism career was picking up, he put poetry aside. Boulevard, Prairie Schooner, and TLS (formerly the Times Literary Supplement), among others, paid him $7 or $8 for his poems, and a collection of his poetry, 'The Fast,' was published in 2016. Brandt, 83, is a prolific writer and editor whose magazine articles and book reviews have appeared in many publications, including GQ, Men's Journal, Esquire, and The Atlantic. Brandt said on a recent summer afternoon, sitting on his backyard deck in Sag Harbor as hummingbirds fed in the tall, potted salvia and bushy cigar plants. I know it's weird to talk about a muse, but I'm absolutely convinced the muse is real,' Mr. 'There is something that is not entirely you. The muse can whisper in his ear or sit next to him and he is suddenly writing, even if it's on a napkin in the parking lot of a Target store while waiting for his wife, Lorraine Dusky, to finish picking up a couple of things.

Sometimes Anthony Brandt is ready to write a poem and sometimes he is not.

North Pole by Anthony Brandt