Poetry Is Deeply Rooted In Rural California Valley

"The valley isn't a very romantic place, or a particularly intellectual place," she said. "Levine's straightforward, honest poetry was a wonderful fit for these kids who were hungry to learn, who were from working-class backgrounds. He taught some wonderful poets, who went on to teach themselves. There was a big ripple effect."

Many outsiders still can't comprehend this flat land, where rivers are harnessed to feed crops and poverty sprouts between fields, as a place of poetry.

De Luna's unflinching autobiographical poem "Bent to the Earth" is the hallmark of his first book by the same name, which was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

The valley is a place where immigrants come looking for a first foothold, a first kid to finish high school, a first house. Along the way, they discover they've become American -- sometimes in the funniest ways, as described by Inada, a third-generation Japanese poet born in Fresno in 1938, in his "Trombpoem":

Right -- 1948, and I was a kid

old enough to make morning deliveries

for my grandfather's fish store,

which consisted of, if you can dig this --

since everything's boarded-up or torn-down now --

just being a happy kid out of the camps

with the privilege of going into front-doors

of restaurants of Fresno's swinging