Gary Soto’s poems are known for their clarity, warmth, and deep connection to everyday life, especially the experiences of Mexican American communities in the United States. His poetry often focuses on childhood memories, family relationships, poverty, labor, love, and cultural identity, turning ordinary moments into powerful emotional reflections.
Soto writes in a simple, conversational style, avoiding complex language while still delivering strong imagery and meaning. This accessibility makes his poems popular in schools, classrooms, and literary studies, as readers of all ages can easily relate to his voice. Beneath the simplicity, however, lies a quiet intensity—his poems frequently explore loss, regret, social injustice, and the struggle for dignity.
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| Gary soto |
Many of Gary Soto’s poems are autobiographical, drawing from his upbringing in California’s Central Valley. Works like “Oranges” and “Black Hair” show his talent for blending tenderness with realism. His imagery—fields, kitchens, streets, and workplaces—creates a vivid sense of place and cultural memory.
Overall, Gary Soto’s poetry stands out for its honesty, emotional restraint, and human compassion. He gives voice to lives often overlooked, proving that everyday experiences can carry profound poetic meaning.
In Praise of Dreams
In my dreams,
I lasso a wild steer on the first try.
I chauffeur Picasso
To meet up with Dali—
None of us is happy about this summit.
After licking my fingertips,
I play guitar masterfully.
I use index cards to make sense
Of the universe.
I discover my childhood cat in the neighbor’s tree—
So that’s where you’ve been, you little rascal.
I beg the alligator, por favor,
To make a snap judgement,
Will it be my leg or my arm?
Picture me swimming with dolphins.
Picture me with these dolphins
Sitting in lawn chairs.
I’m full of gratitude—
The lightbulb comes on
When the refrigerator door is opened.
Yes, I’m the scientist who solved laryngitis—
Now all of us howl at our own pleasure.
I get to throw a trophy from a moving car.
When I park my car,
I’m awarded another trophy—
Someone above is giving me a second chance.
A Red Palm
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.
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.
The wind makes peace with the trees,
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.
After Tonight
Because there are avenues
Of traffic lights, a phone book
Of brothers and lawyers,
Why should you think your purse
Will not be tugged from your arm
Or the screen door
Will remain latched
Against the man
Who hugs and kisses
His pillow
In the corridor of loneliness ?
There is a window of light
A sprinkler turning
As the earth turns,
And you do not think of the hills
And of the splintered wrists it takes
To give you
The heat rising toward the ceiling.
You expect your daughter
To be at the door any moment
And your husband to arrive
With the night
That is suddenly all around.
You expect the stove to burst
A collar of fire
When you want it,
The siamese cats
To move against your legs, purring.
But remember this :
Because blood revolves from one lung to the next,
Why think it will
After tonight ?
Evening On The Lawn
I sat on the lawn watching the half-hearted moon rise,
The gnats orbiting the peach pit that I spat out
When the sweetness was gone. I was twenty,
Wet behind the ears from my car wash job,
And suddenly rising to my feet when I saw in early evening
A cloud roll over a section of stars.
It was boiling, a cloud
Churning in one place and washing those three or four stars.
Excited, I lay back down,
My stomach a valley, my arms twined with new rope,
My hair a youthful black. I called my mother and stepfather,
And said something amazing was happening up there.
They shaded their eyes from the porch light.
They looked and looked before my mom turned
The garden hose onto a rosebush and my stepfather scolded the cat
To get the hell off the car. The old man grumbled
About missing something on TV,
The old lady made a face
When mud splashed her slippers. How you bother,
She said for the last time, the screen door closing like a sigh.
I turned off the porch light, undid my shoes.
The cloud boiled over those stars until it was burned by their icy fire.
The night was now clear. The wind brought me a scent
Of a place where I would go alone,
Then find others, all barefoot.
In time, each of us would boil clouds
And strike our childhood houses
With lightning.
Saturday At The Canal
I was hoping to be happy by seventeen.
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
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,
White-tipped but dark underneath, racing out of town.
The Jungle Café
We could wipe away a fly,
Drink, and order that yellow
Thing behind the glass, peach
Or sweet bread. Sunlight
Is catching on a fork,
Toothy wink from a star.
The fan is busy, the waiter is busy,
And today, in this café
Of two dollars and fifty
Cents, we're so important
Dogs are shaking our hands.
"Welcome, turistas," they say,
Or might say if they could
Roll their Rs. Where we sit
It's three o'clock, and
Across the room, where
Old men are playing dominos
It's maybe later, it's maybe
Peru under their hats.
There are toads in this place
?sullen guards by the door?
And the bartender is just another
Uncle fooling with the radio.
"A little to the left,"
I shout, and he dials left,
Then right, until it's German
Polkas, accordions by the sea.
The toads move a little.
An old man clicks a domino.
Omar, my gypsy friend, puts in?
"Love is chasing me up my sleeve."
I salute him, he salutes me,
And together we're so drunk
We're making sense. Little
By little, with rum the color
Of a woman's arm, we're seeing things?
Of a dancer, no two,
Make that three with one chair.
And that man?the old one
Over there?is so blurry
He thinks he's flying.
Time with You
We're thirteen, almost fourteen,
And so much in love
We want the years to pass—
Clouds roll at super speed, rains fall,
Flowers unfold and die at the snap
Of our fingers. I want to stuff sand
Through a fat hourglass,
And rip the pages from the calendar.
Let me blow candles from my cake.
Let my puppy stretch to full size.
When we turn eighteen,
Time will become a canoe on a still lake.
