Work
Soto's poetry focuses on daily experiences, often reflecting on his life as a Chicano. Regarding his relationship with the Mexican-American community, Soto commented "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."
Soto writes novels, plays and memoirs, and has edited several literary anthologies. His story "The No-Guitar Blues" was made into a film, and he produced another film based on his book "The Pool Party." He is a prolific writer of children's books.
About his work Joyce Carol Oates noted "Gary Soto's poems are fast, funny, heartening, and achingly believable, like Polaroid love letters, or snatches of music heard out of a passing car; patches of beauty like patches of sunlight; the very pulse of a life."
Read more about this topic: Gary Soto
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“They should own who can administer, not they who hoard and conceal; not they who, the greater proprietors they are, are only the greater beggars, but they whose work carves out work for more, opens a path for all.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But this rough magic
I here abjure, and when I have required
Some heavenly music—which even now I do—
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The economic dependence of woman and her apparently indestructible illusion that marriage will release her from loneliness and work and worry are potent factors in immunizing her from common sense in dealing with men at work.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)