'Growing Up in Someone Else's Shoes'

      I recently added a new book to my collection. It’s a small tome, but filled with enough wit, humor and emotion to keep any avid poetry lover entertained for years. Professor Sam Pierstorff’s first published book of poetry, “Growing Up in Someone Else’s Shoes,” is nothing short of a triumph. Although some of the poems have been published individually or performed at the poetry slams that Pierstorff hosts, the work as a whole was introduced to the Modesto Junior College community on the evening of March 11 at a reading and book signing event hosted by the Literature and Language Arts Division.  
     Besides teaching classes in poetry, English composition, creative writing and film at MJC, Pierstorff founded and hosts Modesto’s monthly Poetry Slam, known as “Slam on Rye,” and the annual Ill List poetry slam invitational. He edits the literary journal, the Quercus Review, and has completed his first novel. In 2004, at the age of 28, Pierstorff became the youngest city Poet Laureate ever chosen in the state of California when he was appointed to the position by the City of Modesto.  He held that position until 2008, writing commendable poems for city events such as Graffitti Night at the State Theatre, the annual summer tribute to Modesto’s car culture. But although that was a good and a welcome exercise, he told the audience, he is happy to regain the freedom to write about the subjects of his own choosing. Frequently, these subjects concern his family. He is married with three children, Ameena, Hakeem and Deen, who, with their mother Ruhi, frequently populate his poetry and provide the most tender of his themes.
     Close to a hundred people showed up to hear Pierstorff read from his new book, some longtime friends, some his students, and others like myself, just passersby eager to hear him read. The book is written in two parts, “Then” representing the period before he became a father and “Now” representing his life post-fatherhood. One cannot enjoy his poetry as thoroughly by reading it to one’s self as hearing it from Pierstorff’s own lips. He reads with a unique diction, letting his crude and humorous pieces bark at the audience like a more literary version of stand-up comedy, while allowing his more emotional and heartfelt poems to flow into the hearts of his listeners so that we could truly feel the love and adoration he has for his family and other subjects close to his heart. The book holds many interesting and well written poems with amusing titles such as “Vasectomy,” “They must have confused the SAT test with the STD Test,” and “Death Wears a Black Belt;”and intensely personal ones such as ”So You Wanna Know Why I’m Married?” and “My Son is Too Small.”
     At times during the reading. Pierstorff became overwhelmed with emotion, but he always had a good laugh to cover himself and continue. He portrayed himself to his audience as someone who truly loves what he does: to be able to put his passion to paper. Pierstorff has also written a novel.
     Pierstorff struck me as both a loving and a sarcastic man with an interesting sense of humor and a large heart. When he signed my copy of his book he wrote, “Metaphors be with you!”  I wasn’t bored for even a moment in his presence. My personal favorite was a poem titled “Dear Men,” which tackled the subject of men losing the spark that once made them “grand.” 
Marriages go up in flames because men see sparks/ in the eyes of other women,
and no matter/ how endowed men pretend to be, their little fire hoses/
cannot stop a home from burning down. Not even the children are safe.  
Your daughter calls her leather belt a mini-skirt,/paints her face
with rouge the cherry color/ of brothel walls, and hangs herself
like a used coat/ on the backs of boys who have no spine to hold her up.”
     Pierstorff took questions after the reading, and the ensuing dialogue with the audience went on for the good part of an hour.  Asked by this writer what was his favorite part of the writing process, he replied, “Finishing.
     “Writers are equal parts confidence and insecurity,” he said. “The ending has to be grand.
     He told student writers that “You have to read poetry in order to write poetry, and just write, write write.”
     If you still like the poems you wrote last semester, “you’re not growing,” Pierstorff said.
     Overall I believe that everyone, or at the very least every MJC student, should own a copy of Pierstorff’s brilliant poetic accomplishment, especially if he or she is a poet themselves. It’s an inspiration to see someone who has been writing for so long to finally be published. It’s a long awaited but well deserved accomplishment. I’m certain that he will continue to “write, write write” and I cannot wait to read more of that writing. Pierstorff also has a second novel in the works; by his account it treats some of the themes of growing up biracial and Muslim in Southern California.

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