Most people know Al Basile as a musician: a singer-songwriter and cornetist who has had a long career in blues circles and whose discography as a solo artist is extensive and internationally celebrated. His work with blues great Duke Robillard has led to his participation in two Grammy nominated projects under Duke's name, and he has six nominations as best horn player by the Blues Music Foundation; Mid-Century Modern, his 2016 release was nominated as best contemporary blues album. As a child, however, he was fascinated by theoretical physics and balanced the beginnings of his musical training with early efforts at writing blank verse. At Brown he abandoned the physics program and spent his time writing fiction, poetry, and plays, including musicals for which he provided book and lyrics. He began his professional music career with the pioneering Rhode Island based jump blues band Roomful of Blues in the mid-Seventies. From 1980 to 2005 he taught English, Music, and Physics at the Providence Country Day School in East Providence, RI. His writing, particularly of poetry and songs, continued unabated, and after leaving teaching in 2005 he has been regularly published; he was the co-winner of the Meringoff Award for poetry given by the Association of Literary Critics, Scholars, and Writers in 2015. His first collection A LIT HOUSE: 100 POEMS 1975-2011 was published in 2012.
Al Basile has wrought 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. Almost wholly blank verse, except
for a few very fine pieces in rhymed tetrameter and some persona
poems that reveal a strong flair for dramatic writing, these poems
include autobiographical rites of passage, regrets and
celebrations, personal and family memories, immigrant folklore,
travel impressions, encounters with revered musicians and sports
figures, and ambiguous lessons learned. Everything about them comes
to the reader bearing the unique stamp of the teller, just as the
musical notes that emerge from his horn are the literal product of
his breath. This is poetry, not for the timid, but for those
willing to contend with the "close-grained" nature of a highly
individual artist. The good news is that the reading experience is
more than worth the effort, and rich for the poet's uncompromising
presence in every line.
- Rhina P. Espaillat, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the
Richard Wilbur Award
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