Gary Soto's "Saturday at the Canal"

Gary Soto is a Mexican-American author and poet. He was born in 1952 and grew up in Fresno, California. As a small boy, he worked in the fields in the San Joaquin Valley. He went to Fresno City college and California State University at Fresno. He got his MFA in 1976.  He lives in northern California.

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Soto has eleven poetry collections and three novels. His poems are often about daily life experiences and often reflect his life as a Chicano. He has won many awards for his writing. (Poets.org, 2013)

Discussion:

“Saturday at the Canal” is a narrative poem by Gary Soto. It has 21 lines and is free verse. It seems to be about two teenage guys who are sitting on the bank of a canal and wishing to travel to San Francisco, but never do.

Soto’s chose as his speaker, not himself, but a high school student who’s not much younger than you to get his message across. You relate to someone about your age better, right?. It’s also first person (“I”) so it’s more immediate, like someone talking to you.

Theme:

There are many obstacles in life, but if you focus on the positives, you will get what you want.

No matter their class or place in society, all people dream of a better place. (But, some dreams are not attainable.)

In Soto’s poem, two guys are sitting by the canal dreaming of a better place.

Life is boring or meaningless unless you make it fun and interesting).

Do something! Athletics?? 4-H Club?? Sierra Club? Run for student body president? Join the Glee Club?? Study, get great grades and get a scholarship to the U of CA??!!

Imagery:

(Imagery is the use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas with the use of the senses). 

You can feel and see the same things that Soto is explaining. The “stank” part – students don’t care about keeping themselves clean or in studying.  

Metaphors:

·     A check mark in a roll book (person in school)

·     Post card of San Francisco (a dream – paper/ink -- to attain, not a real place)

·     Hurling rocks (a pointless activity representing the pointless, frustration of the guys)

Tone:

The tone (particular way of sounding or attitude). There is a kind of hopeless monotone. Life is monotonous??

Conclusion:

What’s the problem and why are the guys facing this or feeling this?  (a kind of mystery)

The guys wanted to get out of town. But, the years “froze” as if time slowed down. It’s like young people who grow up in rural areas or small towns who want to get out of town and go to the city. They can’t wait to graduate and get out of the small town.

Works Cited:

The Academy of American Poets. “Gary Soto.” poets.org. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/230 1997-2013Retrieved September 10, 2013. 

“Saturday at the Canal Analysis”.  Elite Skills Classics. <http://www.eliteskills.com/analysis_poetry/Saturday_At_The_Canal_by_Gary_Soto_analysis.php> 2007 and 2012. Retrieved September 10, 2013. 

Sandra Cisneros' "A House of My Own"

Sandra Cisneros was born in 1954 in Chicago. She is one of seven children and the only girl. She is an American writer who has written a lot about the Latina experience. 

                                  (Bio.True Story, 2013)

Cisneros is famous for her The House on Mango Street (1984). She has also written some poems including the collection of poetry, My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1987). In a number of vignettes in Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991), she provides an impressionistic portrayal of life. (Bio.True Story, 2013)

Cisneros’ “A House of My Own” is a hybrid story/poem with about 10 phrases separated by periods and all placed in a paragraph except for the last, long phrase.

Cisneros seems to want her own place. She wants solitude and privacy. She wants to be able to arrange things and decorate as she wishes. It is her own place, her own space.

It seems that she is from a large Mexican or Chicano family.

This story/poem is impressionistic because the reader gets a general impression of the house with its phrases (rather than sentences). One phrase (one pictorial detail) after another adds up to a general impression. It all evokes "my own house" this way more than describing everything in it with specific details in 1-3 pages in a realistic, exact way.

I get the feeling that this writer/speaker is a girl or woman and that she wants to get away from a man’s (father’s) control. She wants to “make” her own place like she wants to write her own story and her own life.

My reaction to this story/poem is that I have yet to get my own place, that is, I have yet to get the place of my dreams, a place that really fits me. I have a house (brick rambler) in Cheverly, MD and a house (Cape Cod) in Olympia, WA. But, neither one is my dream house. The house in Cheverly is just the best I could do at the time and it was a 40^th birthday present to myself to lift my spirits. (I do like the trees and access to the Cheverly Metro subway station. And, I did fix up the place last year. I finally put up bedroom curtains last summer.). The house in Olympia is actually something my second husband chose. (I do like the woods and the fact that it is waterfront property).

My mother tells me I should get a nice, little, first floor condo (in a group of four condos) with a garage attached to it.  I agree but where do I find one close to Gallaudet??

I think I would rather have a place that is either more modern or a place that merges into the woods more.

Bio.True Story. Sandra Cisneros.biography” Biography.com <http://www.biography.com/people/sandra-cisneros-185853. 2013. Retrieved September 10, 2013.

“Sandra Cisneros”. (Sandra-Cisneros-185853-1-402) in Bio.True Story. Image. 2013. <http://www.biography.com/people/sandra-cisneros-185853. 2013. Retrieved September 10, 2013. 

"The Finer Things"

Raymond Luczak grew up in a large family with nine children in a small mining town in northern Michigan. While a baby, he lost most of his hearing due to pneumonia. An English major, he graduated from Gallaudet University in 1988 and became a professional writer. He has written stories, plays, essays, and literary criticism. He has won many awards including first place in the New York Deaf Theater’s 1990 Samuel Edwards Deaf Playwrights Competition.

He is the author of the play, Snooty, the essay, “Notes of a Deaf Gay Writer, “The Finer Things”, a short story, and a book of poems, St. Michael’s Fall. He is the editor of Eyes of Desire: A Deaf Gay & Lesbian Reader.

“The Finer Things” is a short story about a relationship triangle. The main character is a deaf, gay man who has a deaf-blind, gay partner. The main character meets a hearing man at an art museum in Washington, D.C. and the two form a friendship which leads to a more serious relationship. The main character breaks off with his partner and moves to NYC because he wishes to have the “finer things” in life (exposure to the arts, fine dining, larger, cosmopolitan city, good wine, more friends in the art community, etc.). It ends somewhat sadly because the gay partner is deaf-blind and will be left alone.

This story is a good introduction to deaf, gay writing in the 1980s (??). At this time, it is somewhat dated because most Gallaudet art majors are more sophisticated and knowledgeable than the main character. The main character does not seem to eat out in good restaurants much. He also seems to have limited exposure to art even though he was a Gallaudet art major. Finally, the main character seems to get by by lipreading hearing people and there is little focus on the difficulties of communications in the hearing world. It seems that the focus in this story is the main character’s need to broaden his horizons and take care of a new gay, older, partner’s patronage – in other words, this is more of a gay story with a typical art theme than a deaf story with a visual theme. And, it is also now dated.

The writing style is simple but flowing with avoidance of big words that deaf readers may not know. There is glossing of ASL in the dialogue between the two deaf characters. Readers can see some development of the main character who “grows” and changes. The other two characters are not as rounded.

Related to the “leaving home” theme, the main character has to leave home (Washington, D.C. with Gallaudet and its deaf community) to go to NYC, a much bigger place, for more exposure and a bigger chance to realize his potential.

My first husband was bisexual (more gay than bisexual??) and passed away in his 30s from AIDS in the early 1990s. He was the oldest boy in a large deaf, Australian family. He was also a rebel, in not conforming to his family’s church (no post-secondary education, dancing, cards, marrying outside the church, etc.). He left the church and came to the U.S. to get a college education. He later taught history at SWCID in Texas. His younger siblings also left the church (and also were ex-communicated) and his two of his three younger brothers followed him to the U.S. to enroll at Gallaudet.