For eight years, Billie Nardozzi has paid to publish his poems in the classified section of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. On Wednesday, James Hagerty wrote about the classified poet for the Wall Street Journal.
“We usually pay people to write for the paper,” said the executive editor of the Post-Gazette, David Shribman. “In a period of declining revenue, it’s always nice to have someone pay us.”
Each poem is accompanied by a black-and-white picture of Mr. Nardozzi, his hair in a pouffy mullet style. He includes his phone number for anyone who wants to chat.
Nardozzi pays $50 per poem, and they run in the classified’s Celebrations section. In 2009, Brian O’Neill wrote about Nardozzi for the Post-Gazette after a reader wrote in encouraging a column.
He took a day off yesterday from his job packing bottles into cases for the Liquor Control Board, filling orders for Strip District restaurants and bars. I drove out to his house in Green Tree, where nine plastic Santas command the front lawn, and we talked about why he shares his poetry.
He welcomed me graciously, as anyone who has read his poetry would suspect, offering coffee and fresh doughnuts from Shop ‘n’ Save as we sat in the family kitchen. Wearing his “I Believe in Santa Claus” sweatshirt, he told me he’s been writing poems for 31 years. He began sharing them in the PG five or six years ago.
Nardozzi’s latest poem on the Post-Gazette’s site appears on Feb. 23 and is titled “A Poem For The Fan Morning Show.” On Feb. 9, he dedicated his poem to a journalist. Here’s a screenshot:
The WSJ’s piece on Nardozzi includes this video, where he shops and writes and reads three of his own poems.
Earlier this year, Rachel Abrams wrote for The New York Times about a reader who sends her, and other journalists, poems based off their stories, including this one, after a story she’d written about kids eating magnets.
I eat magnets all the time:
the reason ain’t redactive.
If I eat enough of ’em
I’m sure to be attractive.
All this rhyming got in our heads here at Poynter and we started sharing some poems of our own. Want to join in? Email or tweet them to me and I’ll share them here or in another post.
Here’s mine, to Nardozzi, with apologies and clear evidence of why I’m a journalist instead of a poet:
Everyone writes about the shape of your hair
But your rings, your earring, your poems have flair
Can I borrow the purple one? If no, that’s fine
Thanks for the best story I’ve read in a long, long time
Ben Mullin wrote a haiku:
For fifty dollars
And plenty of verbal toil
You’ll get a byline
Katie Hawkins-Gaar was inspired:
Drafting a poem each day
Boredom is kept at bay
Your methods inspire
Me to strive higher
Thanks for showing the way
And from Ren LaForme, who may have a future in this:
I’ve always thought writing was nifty
But now the industry’s shifty
Still I don’t flinch
When I pay for an inch
Even though now I’m down $50
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