Local poet to sign book during Arts Crawl

Poet Edward E. Bortot will be siging his book at Gallery 213 on Saturday during the December Arts Crawl. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff Writer

GALLUP — A local educator has stepped out of his usual academic role to try his hand at something more artistic and creative.

Edward E. Bortot, the principal at Stagecoach Elementary School, recently published his first book of poetry entitled "The Dark Side of an Innocent Soul." The book was published earlier this month by PublishAmerica of Maryland.

Bortot will be selling and signing copies of the book during Saturday's December Arts Crawl from 7-9 p.m. at Gallery 213, located at 213 W. Coal Ave.

According to Bortot, "The Dark Side of an Innocent Soul" is the first in a trilogy. His second book of poetry," Jaded Visions of an Innocent Soul," is scheduled to be published in March 2006. Bortot is currently completing the manuscript for the final book, which he said will be the darkest of the three.

"Each book has 93 pieces of poetry," Bortot said. Each of the books also has poems that are divided into four themes: "Poems of Inspiration and Hope," "Poems of Sorrow and Pain," "Poems from the Dark Side," and "Political Poems." The second book, he said, will have an additional theme of "Poems of Identification."

Bortot said his "Poems from the Dark Side" are rooted in his love for Stephen King's work and horror films. Bortot said he has always liked horror tales and films, and he enjoys tapping into his imagination to write poems that will frighten readers.

Bortot is particularly pleased with the cover art the publisher selected for "The Dark Side of an Innocent Soul." He believes the white roses on a black background symbolize the themes of innocence and darkness that run through his writing.

Bortot said two difficult times in his life were catalysts that caused him to look inward and look to poetry for expression.

In 1987, the year he graduated from Gallup High School, Bortot was in a serious motorcycle accident that almost took one of his legs. And in January 2004, Bortot lost one of his closest childhood friends, the late Patrick Gabriel "Kegger" Tafoya, a friend who Bortot continues to write about in his poems.

Both incidents caused Bortot to reevaluate his life, he said, and both experiences caused him to want to live to the fullest and seize life's opportunities. Expressing himself and writing his own style of poetry is one of the way's Bortot said he is trying to live more fully.

Although Bortot said he hasn't had any formal writing training in poetry, he has been writing poems since childhood. His academic background includes a double major in history and political science at the University of New Mexico and two master's degrees, in special education and educational leadership, from Western New Mexico University's Graduate Studies Center in Gallup.

The only real writing class Bortot has had, he said, was a basic college writing class where his instructor encouraged him to enroll in a poetry course. She encouraged this, Bortot explained, because his essay writing featured more of a poetic style with a poetic rhythm rather than the essay prose style she was requiring.

"The teacher like it too, but that's not what she wanted," he said. "I just kind of had my own style."

Bortot said he began to learn more about writing poetry in recent years from the website poetsworkshop.com, a site where fledgling writers critique each other's work and offer suggestions about writing and publishing poetry.

By comparing his work to the writing of others, Bortot said he's learned more about his own writer's voice. "I'm more of a storyteller poet, and more of a spiritual poet," he said. "I do like telling stories."