Power player-turned-poet Pasquale Trozzolo’s new move: Write words worth a thousand pictures

Thirty-five years after starting his own network of strategic marketing firms, Pasquale Trozzolo teases that his longtime communications journey was just the first chapter ahead of what’s to come — as one of the boldest names in Kansas City’s print history takes on a title that he admits still feels a little strange: poet.

The founder of Trozzolo Communications Group — a former advertising and public relations copywriter (as well as retired race car driver) — recently published “Seeing — In a Small Town,” a conversational book of poetry, penned as vignettes through the eyes of a visitor exploring the lives of small-town Americans and the daily routines. 

“I’ve been writing my entire career of some kind,” explained Trozzolo, winner of the 2017 American Advertising Federation’s Silver Medal Award for lifetime achievement. “It started as speeches and copy and then graduated into brand messaging, key messaging, and ad copy.”

“I was OK at it and had some success with being able to write persuasive copy,” he added.

Although Trozzolo frequently jotted down notes and sometimes poems in his notebook, he said, it wasn’t until the drawn-out days of the COVID-19 pandemic that he started processing his lockdown thoughts with poetry — ultimately gaining the courage to share some of his work with others.

“I was scared to do it, more scared than almost anything I’ve ever done,” Trozzolo explained. “I was more scared than racing. I was more scared than starting the business. And I had this whole new respect for what an artist goes through, to put your work out there.”

“It still scares me,” he added. “But I got good feedback, so that encouraged me.”

Trozzolo’s collection of pandemic-related poems — including “Graduation” inspired by his granddaughter who was a high school senior in 2020 — became “Before the Distance,” his first published work.

“I think — especially at a certain age — you have to keep striving for things, you have to find things,” he said. “Otherwise you’re not going forward. So to me, this was a good way to get through the pandemic and then express myself and hopefully influence some others.”

After his first chapbook (a small booklet of poems), Trozzolo kept writing, he said, but also decided to approach it like he did race car driving — a hobby he spent a decade in his 40s and 50s enjoying — with training and mentoring.

“When I started racing, I went to professional schools, and I called professional drivers — that had no idea who I was — and they were willing to help,” he explained. “So I called some poets — who had no idea who I was — and emailed them and they helped me. And then I took a couple online classes that were rigorous.”

A second chapbook, “UN/Reconciled,” focuses on lost love, he shared — a hypothetical work, as he met his wife, Joan, in grade school and dated her all through high school.

“What if we had broken up in college?” Trozzolo mused. “Would we have been able to forget each other? So this is as if and there’s a story about what relationships are worth saving and what are worth letting go.”

His latest — “Seeing — In a Small Town” — was inspired by observing the connection that an employee of a Dollar General in rural Missouri had with her customers, Trozzolo said.

“The moral of the story is to be slow to judge,” he continued. “What I wanted to teach — especially my own children and grandchildren — was about judgment. I think a lot of it has to do with the political environment in the last eight years. There’s so much judgment.”

Despite three published collections, plus appearances in various journals and anthologies, Trozzolostill feels imposter syndrome when someone calls him a poet, he acknowledged.

“It’s still really weird,” he noted. “I’m still a hobbyist at it.”

“The challenge to me is, how do you write words worth pictures?” he added. “Instead of a picture’s worth a thousand words? I want my word to be worth a thousand pictures. How do you do that?”

Pasquale Trozzolo; courtesy photo

Prologue and the power of the printed word

Trozzolo’s love of writing started early in life, he shared. In high school, he helped his Italian immigrant parents — who owned a couple of shops in Chicago — with their teen magazine. And then when he moved to Kansas City to go to college at Rockhurst and to work with his uncle Marion — known for developing the River Quay area of Kansas City and manufacturing the first teflon-coated pan — Trozzolo helped him start the newspaper the River Quay Journal.

“I loved going to the printer and smelling the ink,” he recalled.

Before starting his own business, he worked in corporate executive sales management, he noted.

“Some of the things I was doing at my corporate job had to do with the power of persuasion,” he explained. “Basically my job was to get people to sell more product. So we started a newsletter/sales bulletin that we sent to people’s homes. And it reminded me that the printed word has a remarkable power over people — maybe even more now — because we see it less, physically.”

This power of the printed word — combined with the legacy of his entrepreneurial parents and uncle — inspired him to start his own advertising and public relations company in 1989.

“I thought that selling organizations could use some outside help,” he said. “When we started, we did exclusively newsletters. Then our clients would start to ask us for other small things like trade show material. Then we grew the business from there. But 100 percent of it was print and now almost none of it is print.”

The Trozzolo building and “Gee Whiz Factory” at 811 Wyandotte Street in downtown Kansas City; courtesy photo

Trozzolo Communications is now one of the Midwest’s leading advertising and public relations firms. Trozzolo — now the executive chairman — said he still works about 10 hours a week, helping mainly with strategic plans. But it’s still a family business — with his son Angelo stepping up in the role as president and CEO; his daughter Sarah works there part-time and his son-in-laws Josh and Ross are the chief marketing officer and chief creative officer.

“The business is diversified, doing well, and growing,” he noted. “We got another big account this last week. McDonald’s is one of our largest accounts. We represent more than 1,500 individual McDonald’s restaurants across the country.”

Epilogue for the risk taker

Trozzolo is hoping that he — as a poet, entrepreneur, and race car driver — inspires his kids, grandkids, and others to not be afraid to take risks, he shared.

“You should move forward,” he explained. “You shouldn’t be afraid to test things, to push things. You should exceed what you think your capacity is to do things, and that you should do that in a kind way.”

“I hope my legacy is that I was able to accomplish things; I wasn’t afraid,” Trozzolo continued. “I stood my ground, but I always did it in a kind, respectful way. And I continue to find new ways to express myself.”

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