Gary+Soto



Gary Soto is a proud Mexican-American who is the author of 11 collections of poetry for adults. His poems mostly reflected in daily events and experience that emphasizes the rush of life. His poems are based from his life as being a Chicano. Gary had a great audience and many people loved his works as a poet. He taught at two universities, which often spread his works to the younger generation as well. His teaching at these universities improved his interaction with younger adults, giving him a better aspect to his poems. Soto has been honored with becoming a finalist for the National Book Award and Time Book Award. His work has also appeared in quite a few literature magazines such as Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly, Poetry International, and Poetry in which he was honored with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award. Soto’s work benefited his homes culture by given new perspectives to daily life. Such as returning home from work or getting up in the morning, even going on a little adventure every now and then. Some of his work that was considered his best were often due to his way of writing past experiences with his literary words.

1. A Red Palm (Songs!) You're in this dream of cotton plants.

You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds

Fall with a sigh. You take another step,

Chop, and the sigh comes again,

Until you yourself are breathing that way

With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.

That's hours later. The sun is a red blister

Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,

Young, not yet the broken chair

In an abandoned school of dry spiders.

Dust settles on your forehead, dirt

Smiles under each fingernail.

You chop, step, and by the end of the first row,

You can buy one splendid fish for wife

And three sons. Another row, another fish,

Until you have enough and move on to milk,

Bread, meat. Ten hours and the cupboards creak.

You can rest in the back yard under a tree.

Your hands twitch on your lap,

Not unlike the fish on a pier or the bottom

Of a boat. You drink iced tea. The minutes jerk

Like flies.

It's dusk, now night,

And the lights in your home are on.

That costs money, yellow light

In the kitchen. That's thirty steps,

You say to your hands,

Now shaped into binoculars.

You could raise them to your eyes:

You were a fool in school, now look at you.

//(Example of metaphor, compared as a giant.)//
 * You're a giant among cotton plants. **

Now you see your oldest boy, also running.

Papa, he says, it's time to come in.

You pull him into your lap

And ask, What's forty times nine?

He knows as well as you, and you smile.

//(Example of personification, giving wind the ability to take the action of "making peace".)//
 * The wind makes peace with the trees, **

//(Example of symbolism, expressing the stars shining at night.)//
 * The stars strike themselves in the dark. **

You get up and walk with the sigh of cotton plants

You go to sleep with a red sun on your palm,

The sore light you see when you first stir in bed.

2. Saturday At The Canal (Songs!)

I was hoping to be happy by seventeen.

// (Example of a Metaphor, comparing a school to a "Sharp check mark in the roll book".) //
 * School was a sharp check mark in the roll book, **

An obnoxious tuba playing at noon because our team

Was going to win at night. The teachers were

Too close to dying to understand. The hallways

Stank of poor grades and unwashed hair. Thus,

A friend and I sat watching the water on Saturday,

Neither of us talking much, just warming ourselves

By hurling large rocks at the dusty ground

And feeling awful because San Francisco was a postcard

On a bedroom wall. We wanted to go there,

Hitchhike under the last migrating birds

And be with people who knew more than three chords

On a guitar. We didn't drink or smoke,

But our hair was shoulder length, wild when

The wind picked up and the shadows of

// (Example of personification, loneliness cannot have the ability to grip.)  //
 * This loneliness gripped loose dirt. By bus or car, **

By the sway of train over a long bridge,

We wanted to get out. The years froze

As we sat on the bank. Our eyes followed the water,

// (Example of Hyperbole, literally flowing out of town but it's described as going fast to improve the value of it's act.)  //
 * White-tipped but dark underneath, racing out of town. **

3. Mission Tire Factory, 1969 (Songs!)
All through lunch Peter pinched at his crotch,

And Jesús talked about his tattoos,

And I let the flies crawl my arm, undisturbed,

Thinking it was wrong, a buck sixty five,

// (Example of metonymy, rubber is a replacement for the name of the substance in their lungs.)  //
 * The wash of rubber in our lungs, **

The oven we would enter, squinting

// (Example of understatement, the situation is described to be less serious than it seems.)  //
 * ---because earlier in the day Manny fell **

From his machine, and when we carried him

To the workshed (blood from

Under his shirt, in his pants)

//(Example of symbolism, expressing will.)//
 * All he could manage, in an ignorance **

Outdone only by pain, was to take three dollars

From his wallet, and say:

"Buy some sandwiches. You guys saved my life."

__**//Works Cited//**__

"Gary Soto." //Gary Soto //. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2013. .

"TEACHERS." //Scholastic Teachers //. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2013.

"Gary Soto." //: The Poetry Foundation //. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 May 2013.