Poetry is a way to unleash emotions and unravel thoughts through the eloquent rhyme of words. It is self-expression that can touch another person deeply; it can knock the very breath out of a reader.  Poetry is personal; it doesn’t have to make a lick of sense to anyone else. There is not a hard and fast way to be “good” at poetry. There are not right or wrong answers in poetry; it is abstract and can be as structured as a skyscraper or as free flowing as a river. Poetry can be whatever it wants to be.

Communication Arts teacher Al Ortolani is one person at BV West who has embraced poetry and incorporated it as part of his life. His deep love for the art form is prevalent in his day-to-day schedule.

“My goal is to write something everyday, not necessarily a poem but maybe a few lines, maybe find a right word, maybe to revise something. Sometimes I’ll feel like I want to write so I’ll sit down and try. Sometimes something comes out of it, sometimes something doesn’t,” Ortolani said. “Sometimes I’ll go through my journal and I’ll pick out ideas that were there and I’ll try to rework them so that maybe there’s a poem there. So I think there is a process I use, it’s more or less just sitting down and finding the time to focus.”

This time to focus is key for the Poet but has been an incorporated part of his life since he started writing poetry in high school. Since high school Ortolani has made a name for himself in poetry as he has published two successful poetry books. The first was published in 1989 and entitled The Last Hippie of Camp 50 after one of his favorite poems in the collection published. He was able to publish the first book after winning a publishing contest through Woodley Press in Topeka. He published a book more recently through Woodley Press again entitled The Second Edge.

Along with being a published poet, Ortolani also participates in poetry readings around the area in quaint and warm bookshops among other locations.

“I started [readings] in the mid 80’s. I was very shy about reading; I didn’t want to read in public. Well I wanted to but I was too nervous about it and finally I was sort of pushed into it by a couple of friends and I found out that I liked it once I was there. I did not like waiting for it to start and I would get very very nervous,” Ortolani said. “Over the years I learned not to get nervous and I actually look forward to them now.”

Ortolani invites staff members, close friends and even various Facebook friends to his readings and through time has developed avid supporters on staff for his poetry. One of his most supportive peers is Art teacher and Art Department Chair, Debra Waldorf.

“I like his poetry a lot, it really speaks to human experience, it also talks a lot about personalizing his memories into experience,” Waldorf said. “I think he gives you little glimpses into his thought processes, things that are in his minds eye.”

Waldorf helped Ortolani design the color scheme and cover of The Second Edge and currently keeps a copy of her autographed book on her coffee table at home.

Waldorf is not the only staff member who respects and enjoys Ortolani’s poetry. Communication Arts teacher and Communication Arts Department Chair, Trenton Stern, is also a supportive staff member. But Stern is also a poet himself. Stern would consider himself  “new” to the poetry game in terms of trying to get his work published but he truly became interested in poetry when he was around 21. He was assigned to write a poem for a class and ended up writing a poem for his brother who died when Stern was a little kid. Stern shares the special poem with his CA classes when he has gotten to know the different personalities in his class and it is time to enter into their poetry unit. It is a personal piece of work for Stern but he uses it to try to inspire his own students to use poetry as a means of self-expression.

“It was the first piece of poetry that I really wanted to keep,” Stern said. “Other things I just wrote because I had to for classes but after that poem I started to play around with poetry more and more.”

Stern has managed to get his work published in a number of poetry journals, including a journal called The Little Balkins Review. If you scan The Little Balkins Review editors list you will find the name Al Ortolani.

“[Stern] had two poems in [The Little Balkins Review],” Ortolani said. “I thought they were both very interesting poems, very expressive and he was sort of just what we were looking for in terms of a new voice in the area who wrote from his heart.”

These teachers have grown together around an art form they love. They support each other and are intertwined in little ways through their poetry, but overall they want to pass along the passion they have for words to their students.

“I want my students to understand poetry as a viable means of self-expression that it’s something they could be a part of if they chose to,” Ortolani said. “I also want them to understand it, and not just for when they go to college but for a lifetime reading experience.”