Poet Lee Herrick talks at Hartnell

Poet Lee Herrick talks to students after his Thursday readings.

“Honor what you’re doing at the time. . . . .There’s too much beauty in the world not to notice things,” poet Lee Herrick told a packed house on September 24, when asked where some of his inspiration comes from.

Herrick, a Fresno City College instructor and the author of the critically acclaimed collection of poetry called This Many Miles From Desire, gave two poetry readings at Steinbeck Hall on Thursday morning.

“Sometimes powerful images just stay with me, even when I don’t use them in my poetry right away,” he told students.

In addition to his poetry, Herrick has a textbook on creative writing due to be published in 2010. His advice to aspiring artists: Read everything you can get your hands on; ask questions and take the advice of instructors—it’s a blessing to be at a college; remember the stories you want to tell and tell them, making them real with your own voice; and work at your writing—rarely does a poem come out, fully formed and done in one sitting.

Herrick read poems from his extensive travels throughout Latin America, and also from his Korea writing. Herrick was born in Korea and adopted as an infant to a family living in the East Bay area. Many of his poems touch on the adoption experience.