Gary Soto is a Mexican-American (otherwise known as “Chicano”) poet.

His poetry is
heavily influenced by the working class he was born into when he was young. Gary
writes about the many examples in his life and takes advantage of the simplicity of the
scene to give it life and feeling. One of his poems “A Red Palm” is about the hard
working, dedicated worker in the fields. You don’t have to be an expert to understand the
deep meaning of Gary’s poems. You get a little peak of the worker’s life. The average
everyday thing THEY experience. The title of the poem seems like it has nothing to do
with the poem at first. After you read “You go to sleep with a red sun on your palm” you
understand why the worker’s palm is like that, and the reality of the whole situation
starts to sink in.
In his pieces “Nelson My Dog” and “Who Will Know Us” he uses descriptive writing to
explain certain events or something. There is no secret message hidden in the poem,
theres no code, there’s nothing like that. Gary is just using make the scene beautiful. He
is moving the flowers of descriptiveness to the window sill of poetry. That last sentence
right there could be an example of what he does! One of his examples are “It is cold,
bitter as a penny. I'm on a train, rocking toward the cemetery” from his poem “Who Will
Know Us”. To sum up what he’s obviously saying in these lines; it is cold and he is on a
train, currently heading towards the cemetery. The reason he says “rocking” is because
the train is a little shaky while going on the track. You should know this feeling if you
have ever been in a subway or train before.
The lines that Soto writes are full of interesting adjectives. I assume they are carefully
chosen so they can be understandable to a broad audience and give the poem some
pizzaz.
Gary’s metaphors and similes can seem creative to an extent. But many times they are
literal. The line “The wash of rubber in our lungs” from “Mission Tire Factory 1969” could
be taken as a phrase with double meaning. It looks literal when I read it, it’s obvious that
they were in a tire factory. But also, the feeling of “the wash of rubber” could be how
they felt during the incident.
One final thing I want to write about is Gary Soto’s use of memory. Most of his poems
are about memories in his life. He always seems to be remembering something and
tries to explain a piece of the experience he has had. It’s good that he writes about
things he knows. I believe if a poet write about something out of their experience, the
words and feelings will come out all wrong. Gary Soto has done a great job
demonstrating his memories through his poetry, and continues to do so. Hopefully his
writing will set an example for anyone who aspires to be a poet. You don’t have to know
fancy words in order to do poetry.