Stepping into Henry Morales’ East Bakersfield home is somewhat like walking into a museum. The photos of him in the military in the 1960s, on the Bakersfield College track club in the 1970s, and carrying the Olympic torch in 1996, along with an AA degree from Bakersfield College, numerous thank you letters and accolades from various government agencies, including at least five U.S. presidents, all serve to impart the message of how a life can be turned around for the better.
And it’s a message that Morales, a 69-year-old self-proclaimed “King of Poetry,” is nowhere near done passing on.
Morales started writing poetry in 1976.
“Before that I was an alcoholic,” he said. “I used to get thrown in jail for disturbing the peace, got thrown out of bars, and I almost got divorced. I had a bad life.”
Morales described that life, quoting from his first poem. “‘I used to pop the can open and drink it down. Two hours later I was painting the town. I’d hop from bar to bar, searching for a reality that wasn’t too far.’”
The breaking point came one night when he almost died from an overdose of alcohol.
“They had to take me away in an ambulance,” he remembered. “I had a bad experience.”
Morales and his wife looked to the church for help.
“She was going to church before me and started praying for me,” he said. “I didn’t know prayer worked, but I guess it did.
“I gave my heart to the Lord, and in 1976, I got a brand new mind,” he said. “Everything became new. I could think better and that’s when the talent started coming out.”
His first poems were taken directly from the experiences of his life.
“I’ve got one called ‘Don’t Drop Out,’” Morales said.
“‘I had to go pick cotton, grapes and peas,’” he quoted. “‘It got so hot. All I wanted was a breeze.’ That one is for high schoolers, but it’s really about me.”
Morales dropped out of East Bakersfield High School during 11th grade and went to work in the fields, as he explains in the poem.
“I dropped out in my junior year, I didn’t listen to anyone, just drinking my beer.”
A driving force behind Morales’ poetry is the message. “There’s a message in there, a message to the world; a challenge,” he said.
“I write about sports, school and education and against drugs. I want people to have better lives.”
One group of people that are close to Morales’ heart are the men and women who have served and are still serving in America’s armed services, and he writes and sends poems to veterans associations and troops.
“I’m a veteran, and I’m able to see the way they do,” he said. “It’s about encouraging them and showing them someone cares, and hopefully they can see themselves in my poems.”
Four of Morales’ poems are on display in the Bakersfield College Veteran’s Resource Center.
But Morales doesn’t just send his poems out to veterans. He also sends them to schools, city and state officials, inmates of correctional facilities, and anyone else he thinks might benefit from a poem, including the occasional U.S. president, many of which have written him letters in return.
In 1996, Morales was nominated for his community service to carry the Olympic torch on a leg of its journey to the summer games in Atlanta.
“Oh, that was my day!” remembered Morales. “It was my glory day. Everybody wanted my autograph.”
The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce sponsored Morales’ trip to San Luis Obispo for his part of the relay.
“They have a spotter running behind you if your arm gets tired with the torch,” he said. “But I practiced for weeks running around Pioneer Park with a five-pound weight. It was great.”
In 2002, Morales retired after working over 30 years with the U.S Postal Service, and now spends his time making appearances as a motivational speaker, and writing more poems and songs, which he hopes to one day have published as a book.