Alan Bätjer RussoAlan Bätjer Russo was born May 25, 1938 in Auburn, New York. His parents were Salvatore and Erna Bätjer Russo, and he had an older sister named Terry. In 1942 the family relocated to Hamilton Square, New Jersey and in 1948 moved to Wichita, Kansas. Smething of a prodigy, Alan graduated from high school early and enrolled at Wichita University, where he took classes taught by Professor William Nelson, who encouraged his interest in the literary arts. He published several of his poems and a notable translation from Latin of Pervigilium Veneris (The Vigil of Venus) in campus literary magazines. While at WU, he befriended members of the local literary and artistic scene-including fellow students Glenn Todd, Justin Hein, Charles Plymell, Roxie Powell, and Robert Branaman. In 1959 he edited an anthology published by Plymell called Poet's Corner #2. In 1960, Plymell published a sheaf of Alan's poems with the title The Locked Man. That same year Alan moved to San Francisco to be followed by several of his Wichita cohorts. He subsequently published poems in a number of literary magazines and chapbooks created by Plymell, Bob Branaman, and David Omer Bearden. Alan spent the next two decades primarily in California but with stints in the mid-west and New York. He had a variety of jobs including staff-member at the San Francisco Oracle in 1967-1968. He also began working sub-rosa on a sequence of prose writings that would comprise an autobiographical novel he called State Line. By the 1980's he was living full-time in Tulsa, Oklahoma where Salvatore and Erna Russo had moved to in 1964. He supported himself by driving a cab, then eventually became his parents' full-time caregiver. His friend Justin Hein visited him in Tulsa on three separate occasions, and in 1991 Alan traveled to Wichita to be reunited with Charles Plymell and Bob Branaman for an event at the Wichita Art Museum. After his parents passed away in 1998 and 1999, he fell ill himself in 2002 and spent his final six months in a Tulsa nursing home. He passed on May 24, 2003. On his death certificate, his occupation read Poet and Cab Driver. Read More Read Less