Sam
Pierstorff, poet laureate and renaissance man
By TINA ARNOPOLE DRISKILL
Sam Pierstorff, Modesto’s current Poet Laureate, has been instrumental in bringing about a Poets Renaissance to the Modesto area. A full-time Modesto Junior College English professor since the fall of 2000 at age 26, he has inspired his students to think beyond bumper stickers and political slogans, and investigate our world issues more deeply to appreciate them (or denounce them) more fully.
Through his dynamic leadership and creative energy, Modesto is now home to Slam on Rye, Modesto’s Monthly Poetry Slam. He is host and co-creator of the always sold out and immensely popular ILL LIST invitational poetry slam held annually at The State Theater in downtown Modesto and founding editor of the Quercus Review (www.quercusreview.com), an MJC poetry anthology which draws submissions from throughout the United States. He also edits dis*course, MJC's Academic Senate publication.
Sam has published more than 100 poems in numerous journals, some of which include Rattle, Pearl, Slipstream, Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review (cover feature), Louisiana Review, Sidewalks, StapleGun, and Song of the San Joaquin. His latest collection, The Albatross Lives, was nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and favorably reviewed by X.J. Kennedy who wrote, “Sam Pierstorff writes clear, straightforward, no-nonsense poems, full of infectious humor and strong feeling.”
A practicing Muslim, he has been involved as a presenter and panelist since 9-11 for treach-ins to discuss terrorism, Arab stereotypes, and misconceptions in Islam and has conducted community education courses on The Teachings of Islam, refuting myths and misconceptions.
He says he does drive a big Chevy truck,”which makes me a poor environmentalist, but I also grow my own tomatoes and cucumbers organically and I don’t litter.” He and wife, Ruhi, are the proud parents of two-year-old son, Hakeem, and infant daughter, Ameena, born in May.
Ode to Modesto's Youth
They want to live elsewhere:
Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Long Beach-
mere posters on their stucco ceilings,
a wrinkled sky of bridges and lights,
ocean waves and walks of fame.
The heartbeat of Modesto isn't enough to keep the young alive.
The magnetic pull of sex and success is too much
for the farmer's daughter, the teacher's son,
whose only thrill is Safeway's empty parking lot,
a half-dozen cars circling like Old West wagons on a Friday night.
They race down Pelandale but never leave town,
never move fast enough to forget where they came from.
And it is clear to me that they will never venture too far from home
because the weak are tough here; the uncool are blazing down McHenry
in their red Camaros and elevated pick-up trucks, lifted so high,
they can't see how good they have it.
The House Outside our Homes
I.
The four walls pucker the way cheeks do
when the tongue has tasted something bitter.
The sky has committed itself to rain.
The roof wants to give up.
Underneath, a girl hears the plinking
of the drops against the bony house.
II.
You might want to know
what it would be like to live there,
but you've never stopped
to ask the young girl in the splintered home
how well the tractor tire works as a swing-
dangling from the fat willow branch.
III.
Today, she has gone to school.
The house exists inside her like a broken rib.
They know where she has come from;
they have seen her walking home.
She doesn't hurry; her left foot is slow. She limps-
or the world is crooked.
Purple Heart
At 4-years-old,
there was no better place to stuff GI Joes
than inside my father's boots.
And on those cold mornings
when the sun was an understudy to the rain
and my dad was late for work,
the sharp hands of the soldiers
would reach up and claw his heels
as he stomped into his shoes.
We'd hear him yell, reach in his boots
and send the GIs airborne down the hallway,
smashing them against our bedroom door, three at a time.
The sound, like gunfire, woke my brother
who shivered under a He-Man blanket,
I stuffed myself deeper into my comforter.
And we knew that there would be no worse pain
than when my father would come home limping,
show us the cuts on his feet
and bury his own claws into our tiny rear ends.
Neither my camouflage underwear
nor my brother's Green Lantern briefs
could protect us from the thrust of a hand
attached to a man
whose boots were sabotaged
by our action figures.
And in those beatings,
we learned too quickly
that war
was no longer
only
in our imagination.
