Lucas Schmidt, known by his pen name Luke Levi, is a poet. He was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1993, and grew up in San Antonio, Texas. Growing up in the region known as the Texas Hill Country inspired his future poems, where he’d write about wild animals like roadrunners, coyotes, deer, birds, cacti, and trees. He went to a Lutheran school from kindergarten to eighth grade, then a college preparatory high school until 11th grade, graduating from high school in Salina, Kansas. Afterward, his family returned to Texas to live outside Austin. Levi took classes at Austin Community College, earning a general degree, then earned a BBA in finance at Texas State University. He worked for a nonprofit focused on reducing poverty and wrote and edited for them before working for an e-learning business. His book, So Fragile Are the Beautiful Things, was a finalist for two awards. Inspirations for his poetry include Imagist poets, Zen and haiku poets, and nature poets such as Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, and Carl Sandburg. Infused with spirituality and love, his nature-focused poems are so well-loved worldwide that some readers have tattoos of his poetry. Levi’s optimistic poems can be found in more than 20 magazines in the US and UK. He currently lives outside of Austin, Texas.