2021 Kansas Notable Book; Al Ortolani; Unknown

today on tv are present our chances notable book series continues with swimming shelter one hundred days of the virus then came accusations each year the state library of kansas likes fifteenth of the best books about kansas or biking if the kansas notable books we're featuring them on keep your presents our portal i think is a poet and retired teacher i'll congratulations you very much and you start out right away by reading your first poem from of reform law in the book is entirely listener without me sunlight finally bleeds through the overcast daffodils brighten the winter mulch the forsythia way up a purple crocus bird song early in the morning gray carries a familiar tune so i've written a thousand poles to spring each year they tumble like marbles out of a leather bag

now it's true i'm the bag tight and all winter was a draw strength rattling with health barone and scuffed by the years as for march twenty third point would you read that poem more than a year and a half ago and used that to write one pawn every day for the first one hundred days of that covered an eighteen pandemic what was your thinking when you started this troubled it was an organic decision that the sort of became clear as i went through the process i i didn't initially set out to write a hundred i want to write every day and i had been writing every day but i didn't write for it public consumption it was sort of journal in or whatever i had gone out that i thought i would change things up and i just thought you know i've been reading and following people on facebook it's

really the only way i have any connection with people and so i put the pole on facebook and then the next day i put another one on facebook and in the third they either you know this is this is kind of fun and because i was getting responses now and no one was giving me negative say world is like send little smiley faces and you want none of that this is this is still fun it's almost like a live reading and so that that was cool i kept doing it for a while because i was getting comments like oh i look forward to reading your poems every day because i am everything and that i really so dreary and so depressing and and this is a good change as salome me feel good and i kept with that i wondered ok what point do

i stop and sort of thought well thirty days would be good and so i wrote for thirty days and then after day thirty i thought okay that's enough the next morning i got up and i thought i don't want this to end and so gradually idea of a hundred homes it's sort of you know came to me and that's that's how the service can't do it until i had a hundred and even then it was hard to stop those a nice round number you know i'm reminded of those early days in the pandemic when we were all kind of a little bit in shock and trying to figure out how to connect with other people when you were staying at home and not seeing anyone and not going to readings or connecting with people in sort of your normal way that those merger and also there was an idea that today which i mentioned in the introduction which i don't

write interruptions forwards to my own book and in this case i did and the international i staked it naively i figured all this would be behind us in thirty days sixty days you know this was my first pandemic as what's true for the rest of us did not know when the insurer of the language of pandemic you know and i'm being stale stage in shelter or whether they refer to a dozen children implicit us and those terms that or indeed being self quarantine i didn't know really what that meant as always thought so i had that you know play with those terms as they became part of our in a vocabulary i'm reminded of my own early experience with a pandemic i stumble across a group on facebook called one hundred days of the camera on

where and which was started by a woman in iowa city she teaches at the university of iowa where if you're familiar with the camera next ten people telling a story a day for ten days so as ten cents one hundred stories and the idea the group was that for the next one hundred days we would read one story a day and i remember thinking like oh well you know one hundred days will be will be done with the record has gone on to read john milton's paradise lost ten days of the epic of gilgamesh and we just recently finished one hundred days of war and peace omar so carried out that those who had who it is that they know just what we do is to you know tell me about the name of your book is well i began to as i was writing these again to think that maybe this would be a year put this together into a bookworm because people kept their assignment on

facebook but what is the other book i want to read these later and kale see what i can do is don't create a book you know and after though one hundred days were done i began to you know toy with the idea of how this would be best approach to the book got that taken care of and now the title was still sword hanging around there in that one sure where was coming from i have a tendency to override sudden wanna say you know too much that was going to be a little bit you know eskew a little boat slammed with the the title but i was looking for some artwork by one of my former students jackie on for sure and she does a lot of the year our work recovers from my other books and as i was looking through

her website i saw this or saw the cover painting and the boy and i like that there's a civil woman swimming an end it's the water is dark and kind of mysteriously lit and the woman's eyes are closed as she swims and it's sort of a riff made me think yeah that's sort of saying what i want to say and it was as if the woman swimming was going through her life but she was also in shelter she was also sheltered by her solitude and the activity of solitude and so i thought you know this this is where one goes because most of us stayed active or are new activities throughout this time period and and this swimmer him pretty well settled law and so i played around with it as this

swimming shelters this sheltered swimming in ohio i do this and so i finally settled on a plan so i'm jackie explaining to thanks for the title and it is a don't do it that way but nonetheless that's what happened and then there's a pond that does with that the odds one that i wrote after it was all over in the i can read that what you want as the lilly is by far the most obtuse of the holmes and why struggle to try to figure out what to say how i was sent it so this is a little short whole beginning of the book it's really one that's out of chronological order sir after that was the and swimming shelter there's knowing too little and too much in the quiet as she swims out of herself

a cloud merging with clubs that's our portal on the reading from swimming shelter it's one of this year's kansas notable books they kansas double others will be honored at this year's kansas book festival on september eighteenth in topeka you can find out more about that at their website kansas book festival dot org seale went about writing these poems you mentioned that they're in chronological order other common themes and common threads that find their way through your poetry there are for all my poetry us through this book yes i when sure what there'd be enhanced or let the polls play out there's always for me especially in this last book are sort of the theme of solitude sort of that same quiet the inner quiet that we find and peaceful

moments which i think we had to find our in the us or else we go bananas and bouncing off the walls of warehouses and so these poems each pool has kind of meditative and i thought about that as i was writing and the others because i would get up every morning and start the poll news live before people were awakened the house and so i will ensure whirlpool was going though i didn't have a set i didn't have a title and i would just start writing and sometimes i would have to start many times but every town and a line would click and i would continue with that and the goal was to go where the poem took me to see what it had to teach me that day and i never really knew where it's going to go where it's going to end up and afterwards go

back through and look at it make little editorial changes but all within that day which was a very different approach for me because i would use that technique of writing for the medicare approach which i think we all do not sure where we're going until we get their butt on the goal was to do within one day and so sometimes the palms when you come in the morning and i would leave the computer open and i would come back to it later in the day and some of them didn't make it on to the wire until a little before midnight i said to say you're done you know for what you're worth and cars that became the goal was to just get one per day regardless which was scary because there wasn't time for

religion and i usually would take any poll mine written and i'd put away or forget about a while and come back to it in time maybe in the next day maybe a month later an ongoing effort in about a totally unknown so maybe this monster is and i would rewrite and this wasn't that way so as a learning experience and it made me a little bit i don't know what's the word or you simulate shy about putting these out there because i didn't want me running weak stuff and so then i sort of thought possible here's a collection of very average holds as i really didn't know if they were worth with our kids are really never been vetted in excel by me and a few close friends who are gonna say you know our listener lisa out there not to say that you know it's like having your mother read everything when your grade school on missile sweetness put on the

male on the refrigerator so i was i'm sure another thing that dawn the mayor's those rioters book and though it was anything up put on facebook for many of the small press magazine's counts as a publication which precluded them being published anywhere else and so there was a sacrifice their fight have a good palm of audio cassettes i'll pause live they live by these non paying market so you know publish your palm center so the people can see them and you can build a resume so that was a sacrifice cause you know many of the small presses won't do anything it's been pretty published i understand that there are a few that will and so i sent some off after this was all done and are for the most part that's the one publication in the one time it's there and

says i have a word with these poems as much as others i look at amazon's surprise though i wrote that i don't remember writing now and yeah so it's it's been an interesting thing to deal with you mentioned once you might have some work that i liked in the matter of a couple of some forgotten remember you know it occurs to me out there and as much as you might wanna go back after the fact after the day is passed and revise the poem theres pope leo real lesson to be learned about life as far as that is done it's over and done with live on time for the next day it's time for the next column a degree was that was kind of the goal and that's why you know it's all chronological seriously day by day by day and maybe if there's a cycle an air of ups and downs and mood swings that that will be visible as well this could have gone on if i had the stamina this could have

gone on for you know you're still no fire and stamina from the sky i i'm sure i'm sure i would have run out of gas you know after that cause it's it was difficult at times to force myself to sit down and plus my wife was very good about that she knew we couldn't plan anything until i had mine now computer time and i haven't read another one yes you can distance between sparrows has another meditative one dollar but this one came about looking for fuji that was in a restaurant in the early early early days of the shutdown distance between sparrows so my wife and i have been self quarantine for the better part of a week and asked kerry if you'd like to out to

dinner she's been one step away from crazy so she agrees immediately we drive to a little fast food spots across the interstate the one with the middle eastern manager who plays reggae through the sound system while hand delivering burgers like an italian waiter we can only use carry out since that's the new law and probably necessary considering the pandemic so we take our sack of burgers and fries outside to a concrete table they're never seen used during normal times this way were not inside the restaurant but not really outside either before have opened the ketchup packets the manager uses out of the side door and sits at the other table which is easily sixty two are left he says a cup of coffee and begins the same old low life for those home country we applaud when he's done smiling shyly into his black coffee he nods

a little returns the way it came my wife wipes a tear from her i really the tail gunner rock that rescue boat from the drive thru there's no way and probably it'll stay put until it comes out again to light a cigarette and watch the parking lot full of sparrows that's our portal on a reading from swimming celt or an exercise in the american crawl i'd like you to read a new racket in if you can turn the page eighty for american i have knowledge my hand so much sense well sense forever sauce soak in the dispenser by the sink in the kitchen in the whole bathroom and the bedroom next to the toothbrushes on occasion i don't know what i'm scrubbing off cannot say that i've encountered any virus positives on the street at the

grocery and driving the car to the bank teller's window it's all this scrubbed down the scraping of skin as if i'm a parent and preparing for communion away from the hand on the tone a sip of wine with the floating host i'm not in a good catholics are cafeteria christian picking letters from behind the sneeze guard my hands are clean but that had not sparkled think too many years of age them dark skin liver spots a warped scar much in the past cannot be claimed was so the dirt lies below the skin like karma like a dozen bad decisions giving into yes instead of no allowing know indeed it was yes and i think in my life that might depend on lysol and warm water as if all those cleaning is something novel and you recommend scrubbing muscles in the creek bed like we haven't known clean scans since the first confession since we melt in the box in the window opened

to the voices of women on the banks of a river singing the old songs slapping laundering on rocks it was may twelfth twenty two and take us back to may twelfth in europe and you're thinking as he wrote that i don't remember and probably we had just gotten back from a grocery venture and picked up bottles like a bottle of hand so my wife really likes the soft soap stuff that i didn't know existed and there you know shows he has all over the house and we were buying when we were also looking for bottles of hand sanitizer as we all were down and you could there was a shortage of it and maybe that was why the days we driven to some line somewhere in our car and waited to get in big jug of it from a company that

also made whiskey it was just a strange experience in that we're happy to get better and this i tried to have a sense of humor thrown us you know yes is serious stuff that you know the lines the way to go brave volunteers of meeting people in others and all the masks has a slicker okay this is an interesting thing to be going through and i've tried to keep a little distance from my emotions and the three with albert lanny of lenexa he's the author of swimming celt or an exercise in the american kroll it was one of fifteen books to win eight twenty twenty one kansas notable book award from the state library of kansas could you read awkward felt were swollen later ones that i did and i wrote this about being a father and for all of us who

had fathers which should be almost an awkward over sometimes we need to forgive our fathers before we can post their picture on facebook you know the phonograph the want the black and why and grain young man you'd barely remember smiling up through the decades flashing teeth young eyes smooth shaven maybe he's wearing a military uniform maybe a dark top coat he's holding you by the hand in front of the white house or next to a forty seven oldsmobile snow covers the ground both of you in transition sucking the air going somewhere that the man that a picture a reason to brave the chill the cold seeds of the waiting car possibly a sunday and we're heading to grandmothers for

chicken and noodles that might explain the good kotler church shoes his hands are familiar drenched in aqua volvo as quick with the belt as with the band aid imagine you lost appear stronger than his own father who has so many of his generation died before giving their sons and daughters the nod the relationship was complicated and they're seldom enough time to sort it sometimes we must forgive our fathers for being the man in the photograph for letting us fall for letting a stand for leaving us under june twenty first twenty two and that's howard on a reading from his book swimming shelter an exercise in the american crawl to that happened to fall on father's day may have been

a so the poll also liken about us a father's day no memory of you know when he arrived to your father to a father you know i had that wonderful father was my hero and mentor most of my life that is also very old school you know and the world was a new school this will mistrust different you know my dad liked archie bunker you know this is a reminder of his and our orval army his book swimming seltzer as a collection of one hundred poems written up over the first one hundred days of a coven eighteen pandemic when you look back at the palms does that content or their feel of the poems change over that one hundred days i think it maybe becomes more mature a little more resolute in the idea that this isn't going away you know

i think there was a like i said earlier a naive today in the early ones that well this is a song that you know in a few weeks we'll be done with you know but by a hundred days you know we're seeing that maybe it won't ya remember to in cans is we were watching this removed the irony is that now that we thought we were over the hump could say the delta very into this what's having a sort of senator here in the midwest you know kansas missouri all the states that didn't take the vaccine as seriously or an hour as religiously us may be needed to be can i have you read another poem for ken have you read ending the high speed you sure can throw if they live you know for you choose these

this is me an idea which ones resonate a deal and which ones resonate with me maybe entirely differently than those that resonate with someone else that's very true so what now after the case since your car in a stranger's yard a quiet house on a quiet street with the shape of the oaks deepens the hush you unraveled the decisions that led you here hiding in the darkness silence abandoned tires shredded by stop sticks a gun in the back seat a child crying in the back rent to me the shadows say find where the do over begins run before the rifle speaks before the news clip the story overhead helicopters circle searchlights flattened like lozenges in the old gardens climbing the

stone facades the fences concrete statues now as naked has price tags this was not the planned tonight a dozen police with handguns others with assault rifles cross between i dreamt his hand signaling your name through the lilacs may seventeenth twenty twenty oh what's the story behind the polished with a new story that i caught on the evening news yet here we are supposedly and then shut down the steepness and crimes go on and there i don't remember the situation around the high speed chase i don't remember how much was embellished with poetic license think it's fairly acrid burn a recall and it is struck me that here was something that was from the old morals

still loyal to know and blood me to think about all those bad decisions we make in life you know is there a moment of reflection before the consequences when you wonder how could i have done things different view i get a do over a mulligan in now it strikes me that as opposed to a lot of the poems in your book which are very solitary and about your internal life or the life within your four walls at home that that pollen it perhaps but to me because it was about a news story but it also is about something that's going on very outside your particular life and everything we write comes through us in ours so it's all about our life in a sense because we have to interpret it but many of them are more about what's

going on outside of a sin and that's where poetry is for me at where poetry of storytelling comes in they have the ability to you know the narrative and at the same time do a reflection on what's going on inside you know i'm just an allegorical army of lenexa he's the author of swimming shelter one hundred days the current virus and exercise in the american kroll it's been named the twenty twenty when kansas notable book by the state library of kansas well congratulations and thank you so much for coming in today in the enjoyable thru shit you taking the time for doing this all together so thank you the winners of the twenty twenty one kansas notable book awards will be honored at the kansas but festival that's coming up on september eighteenth at the washburn university campus in topeka you can find out more at kansas book festival dot com

i'm kate mcintyre will have more keep your prisons coming up right after this