Al Basile writes poetry, songs, fiction and plays. He's known in the blues world as a singer/songwriter/cornetist and has many albums of his songs available. He has two books of poetry, A Lit House: 100 Poems 1975-2011 (Winnikinni Press, 2012) and Tonesmith: 100 poems 2012-2016 (Antrim House, 2017; with an introductory essay by Christopher Ricks,). His poems have appeared in Literary Imagination, The New Criterion, First Things, The Texas Review, and The Raintown Review, among others. He especially values the poem in performance; Tonesmith contains links to his recorded readings of all the poems in the book. In the last two years he has led workshops at the West Chester Poetry Conference on song lyric writing for poets.

Author Site: www.albasile.com
YouTube: albasile9

Books

Solos (Antrim House, 2021)
Tonesmith: 100 Poems 2012-2016 (Antrim House, 2017)
A Lit House: 100 Poems 1975-2011 (Winnikinni Press, 2012)

Chapbook Short Story

Play of the Game / La Jugada del Partido (bilingual version published for the Lawrence Public Library, 2013; English original reprinted from Final Fenway Fiction).

Poetry and Songs Online

“Sgt. Darden,” The New Criterion
“Mushroom Hunters, 1957,” E-Verse Radio

There are dozens of video clips of individual poems from readings at my YouTube channel, and around 200 videos of songs there as well.

Anthologies

Further Fenway Fiction (Rounder Books 2007)
Final Fenway Fiction (Cornerstone Book Publishers, 2012)

Honors

Meringoff Prize, 2015
8 nominations by the Blues Foundation for Blues Music Awards (formerly the Handy Awards) since 2010 (2010, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015,`2016 [twice], 2017