The Alabama Writers’ Forum
The Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, works to cultivate our state’s literary culture. We do that through supporting writers at all stages. We encourage our young writers to find their creative voice through the Father Goose Poetry Festival for Kids!–and through our Alabama High School Literary Arts Awards. We support the work of our state’s literary community through our Alabama Authors Directory, First Draft magazine, and other programming and opportunities for writers across the state. And we celebrate our state’s rich literary legacy through the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. We are, above all, a community of writers united by our desire to advance the literary arts in Alabama. If that describes you — join us! There are many ways to get involved.
January as a House You Walk Through
January as a House You Walk Through By Alan Burkett January 2026 Paper: $14.99 Reviewed by Steve Harrison This first book of poems by Alan Burkett has a double structure: the thirty-one poems carry us through the days of January, while the poems also move from the front porch through the living room, kitchen, hall, and bedroom, explore the attic, and ease out the back door into the yard. Four or five poems, most about twenty lines, accompany each stop on the tour. Within these structures, rooms, days, and poems are smoothly connected, moving in a gentle sequence of entrances and exits. It seems right to read these poems in one sitting. Each poem, each January day, each room is, as Burkett writes, an invitation "to move slowly, to linger where you are, and to trust that staying present is already enough." The poems iterate the complications we do not require. As the sequence moves through the back door, Burkett advises us "to release what no longer needs holding, and to carry forward what does." The word [...]
