Solos: One Hundred Poems, 2017-2020

Al Basile's poems have style, joy, and - above all - verve. Sometimes they unfold with the lyric expansiveness of great jazz solos. Sometimes they shine as beautifully jeweled miniatures. What a pleasure to read a book of poems with such unabashed energy. Al Basile's playful ease with the pentameter line bespeaks a sensibility trained in the subtleties of musical rhythm and voice. Turn almost anywhere in this rich collection from five decades and you'll find "an instinct for the game, and more." He produces poems that are almost holographic in their insistence on bringing their author into the reader's space, where he - his tone of voice, body language and facial expressions - constitute an uncanny presence. The very title of the book identifies the author as a music-maker determined to be heard, and as a poet whose first concern is achieving the tone in which he wants to be heard by the reader.

Author: Al Basile
Publisher: Antrim House
Published: 03/15/2021
Pages: 242
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.79lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.55d
ISBN: 9781943826780

About the Author
Basile, Al: - Born in Haverhill, Mass., Al Basile was the first to receive a Master's degree from Brown University's writing program. He was the first trumpet player for Roomful of Blues in the mid-Seventies, and since the eighties has appeared as writer and horn player on albums and DVDS by Roomful founder Duke Robillard. He formed his own record company Sweetspot Records in 1998, and has released seventeen solo albums featuring almost 200 of his songs. He has been nominated eight times for a Blues Music Award, including one in 2016 as Best Contemporary Blues Album for his CD Mid-Century Modern. His songs have been covered by Ruth Brown, Johnny Rawls, and the Knickerbocker All Stars. Guests on his own releases include the Blind Boys of Alabama, Sista Monica Parker, Sugar Ray Norcia, Jerry Portnoy, and jazz great Scott Hamilton. Celebrated for his mastery of lyric writing as well as music, Al's skill with words extends to his other career as a poet: he is published regularly in leading journals and has two previous books, A Lit House (Winnikinni Press, 2012), and Tonesmith (Antrim House, 2017). He won the Meringoff Award for Poetry in 2015, and his verse radio play Flash Blind was featured at the HEARnow festival for American audio theater in the summer of 2020. He was a teacher of English, music, and physics in a private Rhode Island high school for 25 years before devoting himself to music and poetry full time in 2005. He has given talks on lyric writing at Boston University, and for the last two years he has taught lyric writing, led panels, and performed at the West Chester Poetry Conference. In 2020 he became a member of the Powow River poets.