Will Bortz was homeless at 15. Now, the Iowa poet has a new book and 82,000 Instagram fans.

Late July twilight lingered over Ingersoll Avenue as Will Bortz stood under an indigo sky.

He walked along the sidewalk brushing against store windows on that two-way street with his wife Chelsie and close friend Casey Knue. The trio listened to midsummer sidewalk harmonies of cars humming past them before they arrived at Big Tomato Pizza Co, the local late-night neighborhood spot for saucy slices.

Scenes in time such as that hour have been etched into his thoughts ever since. Nostalgic memories and moments of escape inspire his recent release “Many Small Hungerings,” a collection of poetry published by Kansas City-based Andrews McMeel Publishing that debuted on May 9. The book is the follow-up to 2021's "The Grief We're Given."

"Nothing was really happening of substance, but it's one of the better memories I have had in the past four years," he said. "I just looked around and noticed stuff and I've held onto it, so the idea is we have all of these little pockets that we hold onto, and we hunger for. I have all these tiny moments that are seemingly nothing, but they influence so much about me."

"How great it is to miss things, it means we were there, we felt something; to be simply surviving and feel anything at all is a miracle; walking beneath cherry blossoms in the humid June air; walking at midnight to get a slice from Big Tomato, your eyes blending in with the neon signs," he wrote in "Mineral Water," a key poem in the book.

"Nothing significant was happening, but it was a really cool moment. I was thankful to be with people I cared about," Bortz said.

July nights in love allowed the fledgling Des Moines-based Instagram poet to forget, just briefly, about the past.

“We think about memories that we have, and we latch onto them, and they change, we don’t see them for how they actually were,” he said of his poetry collection's concept.

Bortz, who is now 32, had a tumultuous childhood marked by multiple stints in and out of foster care homes. Each move was compounded with separate lives in different cities across the state. He was first homeless on his own at 15 as he bounced to and from friend's homes and finished high school with their families' support.

"My mom had kind of different mental illnesses and addictions and what not," he recalled. "So, (I was) between foster care and we were homeless for a while, then we lived in women's shelters a lot of my childhood, so I moved around a lot."

Finding poetry, a wife and himself in Iowa and beyond

In his teenage years, he found shelter in writing words and putting pen to paper before graduating from Woodbury Central High School in Moville, east of Sioux City. Burying his pain by building stories helped him escape the emotional weight of adolescence.

"I just wrote things down. I just did that forever," he said.

Friends and poetry saved him from getting lost in the grief of a complicated relationship with his mother. After graduating from high school in 2009, Bortz spent early adulthood from 18 to 23 traveling the country to find joy lost in his formative years. Bortz, who is originally from Sioux City, also self-published his first book at 19 years old.

“I was kind of just doing whatever. I traveled a bit. I lived in South Carolina for a little bit. I spent summers in the Black Hills,” Bortz said.

By 23, he moved to Ames and met his now-wife Chelsie through a mutual friend Adam Suing, who attended East High School in Sioux City with her and introduced the couple.

"I DMed (direct messaged) her on Twitter, which felt classier than the other things," Bortz said. "It felt like weightless, kind of classier ... I DMed her and she was like, 'Sure,' so we talked and then I had a friend in Ames and he let me stay with him."

'Nostalgia is great but it keeps us from being present'

In the college town that is home to around 66,000 people, Bortz found a community of his own. He found a job, met neighbors and got engaged to Chelsie.

"Then, at 24, I was like, 'I'm going to make a decision and I'm going to actually do this and so I dedicated time and life is great,'" he added. "And over the years, I've taken part-time jobs so I can focus on writing or taking time off to focus on it and my wife has been super supportive ... I wouldn't say I really started being a serious writer until I was 24."

In 2016, Bortz started taking poetry more seriously and, in the same year, married Chelsie in the field across from her childhood home in Sioux City, where she spent summers frolicking in wide open space with her three sisters.

By 2020, Bortz had started writing "Many Small Hungerings," which he wrote from a bedroom in his Des Moines home, before he signed a publishing contract with Andrews McMeel Publishing in March 2022. By its release in early May, Bortz has garnered a following totaling more than 82,000 Instagram fans.

"I think the book kind of thinks about those two things like memory and nostalgia and how nostalgia is great, but it keeps us from being present and it doesn't allow us to create new memories of people around us," Bortz said.

Time to bloom and become a dad

On Mother's Day, the couple announced they are having a baby girl, who is expected to arrive on Nov. 18, shortly before Thanksgiving 2023. Bortz wants to become the person he needed two decades ago.

"No matter how great like a parental figure is, it just won't ever fill that," he said. "Even now, you know, my in-laws are incredible and they're fantastic and I love them, but I don't really have a mom or dad and that's shi--y and I'm, I'm good with it. I've come to terms, and I've healed."

All 126 pages of the poetry collection are something for Bortz to leave behind for his daughter to pick up and remember. “Many Small Hungerings” ends with the five-lined poem on page 122 entitled "Russ."

“While we are here, let us laugh to the point of blooming; let us leave something behind to be plucked," he wrote in the passage.

"I'm fortunate now to have many incredible examples of fathers, but there is still that uncertainty," Bortz said.

His past has departed for the present like a June night on Ingersoll Avenue before dusk bloomed to morning light at daybreak. Will Bortz still remembers. He is someone who can't forget.

“I’m sure the grief of growing up fatherless will turn its face toward me again, and my responsibility is to shape it into something I can pass onto my child such as laughter."

Jay Stahl is an entertainment reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow him on Instagram or reach out at jstahl@gannett.com.