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Award-winning Cuban writer visits East High
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Cuban poet Raul Hernandez Ortega works with student in Jennifer Walker's AP Lit/Comp class at Youngstown's East High School on Wednesday.
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Cuban poet Raul Hernandez Ortega works with students in Jennifer Walker’s advanced placement literature/composition class Wednesday at Youngstown’s East High School.
By Denise Dick
By DENISE DICK
YOUNGSTOWN
Students in Jennifer Walker’s advanced-placement literature class at East High School learned about Cuban culture, fiction and poetry from someone who lives it.
Raul Hernandez Ortega, an award-winning Cuban poet and fiction writer, spoke to the students, all seniors, Wednesday morning, reading his poems and answering questions.
Steven Reese, an English professor at Youngstown State University, translated the poems.
The poet said he was impressed with the students’ knowledge of and interest in his work.
“It was a surprise for me,” he said. “These are not easy poems. There’s a lot of symbols.”
The students asked questions about individual stanzas of his poems, trying to understand their meaning.
The bell, signaling the end of class, drew expressions of disappointment from many in the class.
“I really enjoy your poetry,” Jaresus Rutledge, 17, told the poet after class.
He and Doniece Fletcher, also 17, said they liked listening to and speaking with the writer.
“We read some of his poems last week and on Monday,” preparing for the visit, Jaresus said.
Both say they enjoy poetry and Ortega’s works.
“I like poetry, but I like more dark poetry — macabre poetry,” Doniece said.
“Like Edgar Allan Poe,” Jaresus offered, adding that he likes darker works, too.
This marked Ortega’s first visit to the U.S. His father left Cuba for Miami when Ortega was 11, returning when the young man was 19.
Before this visit, Ortega, now 50, hadn’t seen his father since he was 19.
Though Miami reminds Ortega of Cuba, he’s enjoying his stay in Ohio — which he described as “the heart of the USA.”
“I feel very well here,” he said.
Ortega will visit classrooms at YSU today and give bilingual readings of his works at 7 p.m. today in the Ohio Room of the university’s Kilcawley Center.
His appearances are sponsored by the YSU Poetry Center and Etruscan Press, a nonprofit cooperative of writers, and made possible through grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Raymond John Wean Foundation.