We like to say that we are all about Fresno; the people, the places and the lifestyle. When it comes to people that we’ve written about, we’ve admittedly been lacking in one category – the authors.
We’re going to remedy that with this series, looking at Fresno Based or Fresno Born authors. Since today is National “Read a Book Day“, we can’t think of a better day to start this series.
Gary Soto
Wikipedia lists Gary is an “American poet, novelist, and memoirist”. He was born in 1952 and grew up working the fields in the valley. As for school, he attended Fresno City College, California State University Fresno and then did grad work at U.C. Irvine.
He was the first Mexican American to earn his M.F.A. (Masters of Fine Arts) and went on to teach at both Berkeley and Riverside.
As for published works if you went to any of our local schools, you probably read a few of his poems or one of his children’s books. Need a little help remembering? Here’s a list of his poetry collections:
- Meatballs for the People: Proverbs to Chew On
- Sudden Loss of Dignity
- Partly Cloudy: Poems of love and longing
- A Simple Plan
- One Kind of Faith
- A Natural Man
- Junior College
- New and selected poems *
- Canto Familiar/Familiar Song
- Neighborhood Odes
- Home Course in Religion
- Who Will Know Us?
- Black Hair
- Where Sparrows Work Hard
- The Tale of Sunlight
- The Elements of San Joaquin **
- Waiting at the curb: Lynwood California
- Saturday at the Canal
The Elements of San Joaquin, won the United States Award of the International Poetry Forum in 1976. New and selected poems was a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Award and the National Book Award.
“As a writer, my duty is not to make people perfect, particularly Mexican Americans. I’m not a cheerleader. I’m one who provides portraits of people in the rush of life.”
Gary Soto
One of our favorite poems was titled, “Oranges” from New and Selected Poems. We we’re looking for a way to post it here and happened upon this video. It’s worth a watch!
Do you remember the poem now?
Or maybe it’s a children’s book you remember more than a poem.
- Baseball in April
- A Fire in My Hands
- Taking Sides
- Pacific Crossing
- Too Many Tamales
- The Skirt
- The Pool Party
- Local News
- Jesse
- 7th grade
- Crazy Weekend
- Boys at Work
- Summer On Wheels
- Canto Familiar
- Buried Onions
- The Cat’s Meow
- Jessie De La Cruz: A Profile of a United Farm Worker
- Fearless Fernie
- If the Shoe Fits
- Marisol
- When Dad Came Back
Gary has also written plays and memoirs, produced films and so much more!
Since we mentioned Opera the other day… Gary wrote the libretto to the opera “Nerdlandia” for the Los Angeles Opera. What’s a Libretto? It’s the text or the lyrics to the Opera!
Here’s Gary reading one of his own.
He currently lives in the hills above Berkeley but still spends some time in Fresno.
So what was your favorite work by Gary Soto?
FIND GARY SOTO
Website: https://garysoto.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialgarysoto/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%22gary+soto%22
Fresno State: https://cah.fresnostate.edu/about/alumni/soto.html
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