Episode 10 of the Rattlecast features Al Ortolani and his 2019 Rattle Chapbook Prize winning collection "Hansel and Gretel Get the Word on the Street." Al is a retired high school teacher, so "each poem is like a chalk mark on a blackboard. Much like the teacher who has leaned one too many times against the chalk tray, Ortolani wears his poems on the back of pants, his shirt sleeves, his jacket elbows."

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Al Ortolani’s newest collection of poetry, On the Chicopee Spur, was released from New York Quarterly Books in 2018. How Wally Lost His Thumb and the Boy Scouts Became Cannibals, a mix of old and new “Wally poems,” also appeared from Spartan Press the same year. A previous collection, Ghost Sign, co-authored with J.T. Knoll, Adam Jameson, and Melissa Fite Johnson, was selected as a Kansas Notable Book for 2017. Ortolani is the manuscript editor for Woodley Press, and has directed a memoir writing project for Vietnam veterans across Kansas in association with the Library of Congress and Humanities Kansas. After 43 years of teaching English in public schools, he currently lives a life without bells and fire drills in the Kansas City area.

For more information, visit:

https://www.alortolani.com/

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On the open mic:

Carrie Radna

Emilio Puerta

Davion Tinsley

Joshua Corwin

Kevin Kiely

Patrick Murphy