During his early years in the American Southwest, John Brandi traveled with Japanese poet Nanao Sakaki, compiled That Back Road In, and began teaching as an itinerate poet in Poetry-in-the-Schools programs throughout the western U.S. and Alaska. In 1979 he made the first of many excursions to India and the Himalayas to retrace his father's journey as a soldier in the India-Burma Theater. An elegy for his father and a tribute to poet Nanao Sakaki were included in his book Reflections in the Lizard's Eye: notes from the high desert. In 1980 Brandi received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.