"Finding the Edge appeals with a wry, powerful combination of narrative and lyrical poems. The narratives are small novels, chiseled studies of human folly and vulnerability: You won't soon forget the reckless, highway-obsessed Wally or the hapless woman in "Copperhead." In his lyrical mode, Ortolani is beautifully expansive ("In the surrounding air, /the night spreads from my fingertips..."). Cinematic images abound to present a wondrous but never-sentimentalized world of nature. After reading Ortolani, you'll not look at coyotes, back roads, or your lover's face in the old, expected ways again." --Jo McDougall

Finding the Edge

Literature & Fiction

Ortolani, Al

Poetry

Woodley Press

In the 1920s and 1930s, Pittsburg, KS was a major coal-mining town, attracting various ethnic groups from southeast Europe and beyond. The often belligerent and divisive spirit of the miners--and the unpredictable politics of Southeast Kansas--earned the region the nickname, "The Little Balkans." The four poets (Al Ortolani, Melissa Fite Johnson, Adam Jameson, JT Knoll) appearing in this collection carry forward that same proud, independent spirit. They call themselves White Buffalo, after a now-defunct café in Pittsburg that offered writers, poets, artists, musicians, and friends a place of warmth and community, which in turn fostered an environment of challenge and diversity. Ghost Sign epitomizes honest work that is both lyrical and painful while simultaneously joyous and sad. It is rooted in folklore and mystery, and its place is informed by powerful imagery: sunlight on the crater of a strip pit, the shadow of an owl at Camp 50, junkyard mechanics, railroad men, and a grandfather at a piano plunking out Methodist hymns. With craft and passion, the Ghost Sign poets, who each know how to remember, resurrect those indomitable, lost places, folks, and ghosts from the forgotten past of Southeast Kansas. Published in partnership with Spartan Press.

Ghost Sign

Johnson, Melissa Fite

Jameson, Adam

39 West Press

Al Ortolani's most recent collection of poems, THE TACO BOAT, focuses not just on the people of the American Midwest, but on the connection to the humor and pragmatism of working men and women. His poems are vignettes from the fields of Kansas, the hills of the Ozarks, and the streets of Kansas City. They are about good dogs and crazy cats. His people are family and strangers alike. Both are seen with an empathetic eye. They share an attachment to the joys and exasperations of being human, struggling to understand, to thrive. The poems in The Taco Boat step back from the day to day with an acceptance of the life its characters have been tossed into. The images are frequently taken from the natural world, but just as often are from the mechanics garage, the fast-food restaurant, the baseball diamond, the assisted living cafeteria. The poems in The Taco Boat are about the relationships people build, dismantle, and build again. "What creates an authentic life? The Taco Boat, poet Al Ortolani's latest and perhaps most intriguing book, celebrates the magic in everyday living, mingling family stories with the poet's hard-won savvy as to how life really is. Be it a Glock-totting grandma, where to keep your eyes at a urinal, or dealing with the indignities of old age, these poems caress both the timely and the universal, riffing on the quotidian tasks of daily life while diving into the secrets of the soul and even the cosmos."--Alexis Rhone Fancher, author of EROTIC: New & Selected (NYQ Books, 2022) "Reading Al Ortolani's The Taco Boat was like eating a taco overflowing with surprising but spicy ingredients. So, make sure you go to your local IGA and stock up on your favorite snack food and some chicken nuggets before you read. Park your Oldsmobile in the garage and pour yourself a cup of coffee to get ready for this joy ride through life in Middle America. You'll find Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in High Noon, oil changes and battery repairs, painted turtles, fly tying, and so much more. Settle back in your lounger and put your feet up on your favorite stool because you will want to stay for a while."--Jimmy Pappas, winner of the Rattle chapbook prize for Falling off the Empire State Building Poetry.

The Taco Boat

NYQ Books

Hansel & Gretel Get the Word on the Street

Rattle Foundation

The poems in Al Ortolani's newest collection, Waving Mustard in Surrender, come from the streets of Kansas City and the farm roads of Southeast Kansas. His narratives are as much at home on asphalt as they are in bean fields. The natural world is common to the many facets of this collection. Like birds, his poems fly with striking images-as accessible as crank-pot crows, assassin herons, or starlings startled by cannon shot. There's a good deal of wind and spit, flower and piss in a poetry where tornadoes and baseball are not incongruous to a single summer evening. His characters are tough and smart. They revel in a lingering city decadence and messy small town beauty.

Waving Mustard in Surrender

Bull in the Ring: a novel

Genre Fiction

Meadowlark

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Books by Ortolani, Al