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Review:
"The book is looking forward
with empty hands, toward you." So: a sort of gesture, perhaps
a sort of supplication. What is being asked? Only that you enter
"the place in between, where poetry occurs." As an architect
of the gap, Gil Ott provides many doors whereby you may encounter
and be part of the "traffic" of that occurrence. It's
not a house of many mansions, but it is poetry, a place which
may not take place unless you enter. So: a different sort of gesture,
one of welcome invitation. Think it over. What have other hands
offered you lately? - John Taggart
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A widely published
essayist and poet, Gil Ott was Editor and Publisher of Singing Horse
Press. The journal Paper Air, which the Press published from
1976 through 1990, was the recipient of an Editors' Award from the Council
of Literary Magazines and Presses in 1985. Gil's own writing won several
awards, including fellowships from the Headlands Center for the Arts
(California), and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
He published several books of poetry, including
The Yellow Floor (Sun & Moon, 1985), within range (Burning Deck,
1987), Public Domain (Potes & Poets, 1989) and The Whole Note. Essays
focusing on the role of the arts in social change have appeared in American
Poetry Review, High Performance, American News Service, M/E/A/N/I/N/G,
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Cultural Democracy, and others.
From 1981 through 1995, Ott worked at Philadelphia's Painted Bride Art
Center, creating an extensive network of community-based arts and educational
collaborations. He served as the first Director of Development for Liberty
Resources, a consumer-run organization that advocates for the rights
of people with disabilities. He also served on the Boards of Directors
of the Community Education Center and Point Breeze Performing Arts Center.
In total, Ott worked for more than twenty years as a professional in
the field of cultural and community-based nonprofit management.
He lived in Philadelphia with his wife, poet
and educator Julia Blumenreich and their daughter Willa. Gil Ott died
in 2004.
See also, The
Form of Our Uncertainty: A Tribute to Gil Ott
Kristen Gallagher, ed
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