Dr. Ross Runfola is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude graduate of the University of Buffalo where he earned his M. A. , J. D. and Ph. D. degrees.He is an award winning and nationally recognized attorney, professor, poet, sport sociologist and journalist, including a New York Times article selected unanimously by the nation's sports editors as the best sports article published in any American newspaper or magazine. He has acted in films and plays, published hundreds of poems, academic and popular articles, the textbook Understanding Sociology and previous to that co-edited an analysis of sexism in sports, Jock: Sports and Male Identity . Dr. Runfola is quoted multiples times as a sport writer and sport sociologist in the sports Bible: The Ultimate Dictionary of Sports Quotations with such luminaries as Theodore Roosevelt and Muhammad Ali.
Dr. Runfola has done post-graduate work at Oxford University in England in 2006 where he was invited to present a paper, " The Sociology of Labeling: The Treatment of Arabs and Muslims In the US after 9/11" and at Stanford University. He has been selected to every Who's Who he is eligible for, including but not limited to Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Law and Who's Who in American Education and, achieved the highest rating for a lawyer in ethics and knowledge by an anonymous survey of judges and lawyers in the legal "bible", Martindale-Hubble.
He has been honored numerous times for his charitable work as a lawyer, professor, writer and poet including the United Way presenting Runfola its First Annual Community Hero Award and the National Federation for Just Communities (NFJC) with its Sisterhood/Brotherhood Award for Social Service for helping the needy in law, education and writing.. The NFJC citation read in part: " Dr. Runfola is an award winning lawyer, professor journalist, sport sociologist and poet. The one constant in his life, however, given these diverse interests is his commitment to the less fortunate. Sometimes others call Dr. Runfola ' Don Quixote' because he takes on so- called 'lost causes' . However, unlike 'Don Quixote' when he takes on so called 'lost causes' for the disenfranchised... he most often is successful."
Although Runfola wrote in every medium, he rejected writing or even reading poetry since he thought the only poetry extant was boring formalistic academic, rhyming or lyrical poetry until his brother sent him Love is a Dog From Hell by Charles Bukowski with the inscription: " Ross, you are twisted. Hank is twisted. Give him twenty pages." This was a life altering experience for Runfola. Bukowski became his muse. After devouring everything written by Bukowski, Runfola started writing real poetry in the Bukowski genre, focusing on the underside of urban life in largely autobiographical poems sometimes juxtaposed with fiction. After winning the Greater Buffalo Oral Poetry Slam, Runfola became a popular but very controversial reader and writer. The media has described both his written and oral poetry as "free and reckless" befitting someone who "does not follow accepted modes of behavior in his personal or professional life because he searches for creative ways to break with the constraints of homogeneity."
You will love or hate Runfola's poetry, film, and other work on this site but it is guaranteed that you will understand it and, it will kick you in the gut. Some commentary on Runfola's work:
"Ross
Runfola is one of the most talented and charismatic poets in the small press
and underground scene. One of my all time favorites."
Brian Fugett,
Editor, zygoteinmycoffee
"Runfola
is more than just a pretty face",
Bob Creeley, late, great poet.
"Read your article. You are obviously a well-educated, ignorant, piece of shit." Unsigned.
" Runfola's been a juggernaut in the Charles Bukowski community for years .While Buk's been a great inspiration to him, Runfola's poetry stands on its own. I don't get that sense of 'this guy is a Buk wannabe' like I do with so many of his loyalists. The voice I hear is clearly strong and independent. That's a real treat". Pamela "Cupcakes" O' Brien Scarlet , is dedicated by Bukowski to "Cupcakes" . Buk describes "Cups" as a beautiful woman with brains and a great. Half Buks age, she saw the poet as a father figure.
"The
film 'Ross
and Gwen' had a personal unique quality, with terrific
performances by its lead characters Ross Runfola and Gwenivere Kiersz."
Ron Keneske for Night-Life
"Ever since I came to America from India, all I hear is your philosophy of societal blame. You are a bastard and a n....r lover. I am coming to Buffalo to kill you." Imanu Amur Rungle (Brooklyn)
Runfola wrote back to Rungle in part: " Mr. Rungle, you are obviously a man of letters. Most people don't know that Gandhi was not a pacifist under any conditions but saw violence as an option. During your visit to kill me, would you first like me to show you Niagara Falls?"
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Among the poetry journals Runfola has been published in are Bottle of Smoke Press Six Pack # 3, nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize in Poetry; Joan Jobe Smith's historic Bukowski Review ; X-Ray Press, one of poets (including Charles Bukowski) in a special, individually numbered, signed edition # 10 by the celebrated publisher Johnny Brewton in the extremely rare and costly ($7,500 for # 1-10 ) collection found at the Smithsonian Institute and British Museum of Modern Art; Pearl Magazine; Microbe Journal (French);The German Annual Bukowski Review; 99 Burning ezine, and, every issue of the outrageous, brilliant and well-edited zygoteinmycoffee.com where Runfola is selected as Poet of The Month for March 2004 (
see interview by editor) and is featured on the first print edition in Spring 2006.
In 2007, the poetry landscape in the United States was changed forever with the creation of the “National Guerilla Poetics Project (GPP)
www.guerillapoetics.org , by 10 poets, including Runfola. In an amazingly quick time span, Runfola and the other GPP poets were recognized in the prestigious but mainstream “Poets and Writers Magazine”- Ellen Moynihan,“ Poets Resort to Guerilla Marketing”, Sept/October, 2007.
Detached academic poets in the stale halls of academe, who pen formalistic, esoceteric, unreadable and unread poetry and, write poetry only for themselves and not for people were tossed in the poetry ashcan by “ Quercus Review” (2007,issue # 7)”. “Quercus” unabashedly trumpeted the GPP, calling it the next major movement in poetry, the heir to “the Imagists, the Harlem Renaissance (and) the Beats.”
The mission of the GPP was described by editor Sam Pierstorff , as an attempt to make poetry readable and thus popular again since in its current state, “ poetry does not matter anymore.” Runfola’s “
A Real Poet” was the poem cited as poetry at its finest in the war to return poetry to the people: “ Runfola’s theme debunks detached formalistic poetry written in unreadable language and not read by people...Real writing by real writers who care more about the real writing than the accolades…writers that want to be read and understood by the common reader, without literary pretense or the bells and whistles of accentual syllabics, and overused form.” (See more of Runfola’s guerilla poetry in, Ed Kauffman, Ed. “ The GPP Reader: Selections From the Poets of the Guerilla Poetics Project” (2007), and, two chapbooks scheduled for publication in 2008 by Tainted Coffee Press, “Up Against the Poetry Establishment: Poems that Make me Literary Roadkill” and, “Confessions of an Illigitimate Poet: Poems About the Dirty Truths of Traditional Poetry in America.”
In addition to writing controversial poems and popular articles, Runfola delights in shooting his satrirical TV series “Man on the Street” (see small sample in Media), where his only goal is not to be punched (hard) and giving poetry readings where his goal is the same. Runfola holds the distinction of being thrown out of the Shrine Circus and being banned from poetry readings at Borders Bookstore, a select group of coffee houses and an “
Art Gallery” for refusing to conform his poetry to their surroundings, and, well---just being Runfola. He has never been restricted from reading at any bar in the country, although he has been threatened by patrons.
After winning the “Greater Buffalo Oral Poetry Slam” Runfola refused to enter any more slams where mediocre poets compete for chump change. The only exception he made was when he had the opportunity to read his poem “
Shit List” at the “ Albright Knox Art Gallery’s” slam, run by a “Def Poetry” slammer so he could systematically insult everyone in the audience as being on his personal shit list, by listing for example, Def Poetry poets and fans and modern artists featured in the Gallery and devotees. To make sure he would not only lose but be booed, his final words were, “ everyone who just listened to this poem.” Runfola is currently working on a book of the great but neglected featherweight boxer, Willie Pep, considered by boxing historians as one of the top three boxers who ever lived.
Giving a poetry reading.
"Can real men give a poetry reading dressed in pink?"