One of the poems in the book is “Digging” by J.T. Knoll, who grew up in Frontenac and lives in Pittsburg. His poem takes inspiration from a piece by Seamus Heaney of the same name and is about his grandfather, who dug anything from sewer lines to graves after retiring from the coal mines.
“I was just at the right age, at 10, 11 and 12, when I could go with him,” Knoll said. “So I was kind of his sidekick when he was doing these things. I watched him and used all those experiences from that and put them into the poem.”
The poem was first included in the collection “Ghost Sign” in 2016. Thomas Fox Averill and Leslie VonHolten then approached Knoll about including it in “Kansas Matters.” They also asked Al Ortolani, one of the other authors of “Ghost Sign,” to write an essay for the new anthology.
“I said I'd be happy to write a poem, and they said, ‘No, we really want an essay’,” Ortolani said. “And so I said, ‘Okay, I'll give it a shot’.”
Ortolani lives in Lenexa but grew up in Pittsburg. His essay, titled “Resurgence: Milk Jugs and Duct Tape in the Strip Pits,” is about the time he spent as a teenager at the strip pits once used for mining.
“It was a great place to get away from parents and everything, and as Boy Scouts, we used to camp out there a lot,” he said. “As we got older, we just kept going out there on our own.”
The pieces from Knoll and Ortolani aren’t the only ways southeast Kansas is connected to “Kansas Matters.” There is also influence from Eugene “Gene” DeGruson, who curated the Special Collections and University Archives at Pittsburg State University and edited the literary magazine “The Little Balkans Review.”
“He was a friend and mentor to many people who went on to spread the word,” Knoll said.
At a reading held at the Pittsburg Public Library last month, Averill spoke about how DeGruson was a role model for his future work as a professor and historian, and as the editor of the 1991 anthology “What Kansas Means to Me: Twentieth Century Writers on the Sunflower State.”
“Gene made it so that I was a Kansas studies guy for the rest of my life, and I appreciate that,” he said.
VonHolten also mentioned DeGruson at the reading, and the legacy he left on the area.
“I have said that Kansas is definitely my home, but my roots were strengthened here through poetry,” she said. “So the poetry legacy of Pittsburg with Eugene DeGruson and The Little Balkans Review and all of the many fine poets who have come from this region, some of who are with us today, I’m a little emotional about it.”
The works in “Kansas Matters” are organized into sections by themes such as home, family and community, and landscape. The last section, titled “Astra: Imagining Traditions,” is about the inventiveness of Kansans, with pieces about the cowboy boot, pride flag, art therapy and basketball.
“We wanted to put together an anthology that really talked about the feeling that people have about Kansas as a place,” Averill said.
For Knoll and Ortolani, their feelings about Kansas come in part from their upbringings in Frontenac and Pittsburg and the people they interacted with.
“A lot of my poems and poetry relate to people in certain places growing up,” Knoll said. “Whether it's my paper boy experiences, or at the grocery store, the gas station or the barbershop. All those places where people gathered, they were stories and they were characters.”
Ortolani’s jobs while growing up included delivering food and medicine. He often delivered to older people who’d immigrated to the area.
“Immediately I was drawn to it with a lot of pride and respect for how America grew as a result of people coming to southeast Kansas,” he said.
The description for “Kansas Matters” says, “These contemporary voices show us Kansas as we know it to be and Kansas as we want it to be—a complex, emotional and inspiring assertion of why Kansas matters.” For Ortolani, the people who came to southeast Kansas are also a part of what he knows the state to be.
“It's a very independent type of people that live in that part of our state, and I like that,” he said. “They're strong willed. Let's figure out how to do things on our own, and I like the fact that all these diverse groups had to learn to live with one another.”
As for what Kansas can be, Knoll hopes it can be seen as equal to other places.
“Kansas is a little bit misunderstood,” he said. “So I guess in the future, I would like for people to understand that we've got a lot more to offer.”
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