Poet fosters expression at City College

One day at Fresno City College, English major Melissa Geston overheard an African-American student utter the n-word.

Geston -- who is not black -- said it made her feel sad, and then she wrote a poem about the incident for her poetry class at City College. The 20-year-old Fresnan began:

Why do you use that word? The word that forced herds of people onto ships. That disbanded villages, homes. That raped women and made men feel like boys.

Poetry seems a rarefied subject for study at City College, where more than 3,000 students are taking remedial classes in English this semester. But a small band of skilled writers is learning to compose poems under an instructor whose first book of poetry was published this summer and is beginning to attract national attention.

Lee Herrick -- a Korean adoptee who writes about being left on the steps of a church as a baby -- is scheduled to read poems from his book in the Bay Area, Minneapolis and El Paso beginning in October.

If Herrick continues to be recognized for his book, "This Many Miles from Desire," he could one day join a celebrated group of poets with Valley roots.

Former Fresno State English professor Philip Levine won the Pulitizer Prize for poetry in 1995, while renowned poet and author Gary Soto is a Fresno native who attended City College in the early 1970s. More recently, Brian Turner -- who wrote poems about serving as a soldier in the Iraq war -- taught composition for a short time at City College.

Herrick said he has found no Gary Soto-like student in his classes so far. "But there have been some great ones," he said, "and they're early in their writing."

He teaches them both traditional poetry and a poetic form that their grandmothers might not recognize.

Until the 1920s, most poetry conformed to a rhyming, metered form that addressed themes of nature, romance and the ethereal. But early in the 20th century, free-verse poems that dealt with the poet's ordinary, daily experiences began to emerge. That's the style many of the City College students seem to like best.

When the words come, some poetry students write on whatever is handy. A napkin. A hand. An arm. "It's like translating emotions on paper," said one of Herrick's students, Adolph Vizcarra, 18, of Sanger, who has scribbled on all three surfaces.

There's something almost spiritual about producing a poem, Herrick said: "I've begun to think the poems call me out, as opposed to me being in charge of the words."

City College is offering three poetry writing classes this year; Herrick and fellow English instructor James Ewing are teaching the courses this semester.

The classes attract about 75 students annually and help define the college as a place of ideas, not just degrees and programs, said a division dean at City College.

"This is part of offering a variety of classes -- not just bread-and-butter classes, but classes that enhance and distinguish the arts in our community," said Michael Roberts, dean of humanities, who has a master's of fine arts degree in poetry.

Other Valley colleges -- including California State University, Fresno, Reedley College and College of the Sequoias in Visalia -- also offer writing classes for students interested in poetry.

Dealing with difficult situations gives poets stories to tell, said David Campos, one of Herrick's students. "You have to have something to say," the 22-year-old from Clovis said.

Herrick agrees.

"Poetry is sometimes about high-tea and English Victorian culture, and appropriately so, but mostly it's about grit and work and aspirations and sweat and love -- and these things are very much a part of the Central Valley," he said.