Soto, Gary. A FIRE IN MY HANDS. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2006. ISBN 9780152055646.
2. PLOT SUMMARY
This second edition of Gary Soto’s popular poetry collection combines former favorites with new additions. Focusing on events from everyday life, from the embarrassment of spewing root beer out one’s nose, to going on a first date, this collection of Soto’s poems are inspired by his childhood in California’s Central Valley. Although the poems are not totally autobiographical, they portray the normal events and thoughts of a boy growing from childhood to manhood in powerful, emotional language that teenagers in middle and high school will be able to relate to. One of the poems, "The Boy’s First Flight," was commissioned by NASA to celebrate the new millennium.
3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
While Soto writes from a distinctly male point of view, Soto’s poems are wide-reaching and will appeal to teenagers of all ages, both male and female. Over and over again, I found myself saying, “I felt just like that!” or “That happened at our house.” When the 17-year-old young man in “Some Words About Time” (p. 50-51) describes his boring job at the carwash, I thought about my similarly monotonous job as a clerk for the city police department, and when the 12-year-old child keeps hoping for his dog to return in “Hope” (p. 30-31), I thought about my little brother crying for his lost dog.
Soto also writes as a Mexican American in a voice that is authentic and real. He uses vocabulary from Spanish that is woven seamlessly into the English text. His use of Spanish occurs in specific instances – when there is no direct translation (for example food names such as tortilla and salsa), as part of dialogue (such as when his grandmother calls, “Baile, hijo, baile!” and to convey an intimate family relationship (such as when his refers to his grandmother as abuelita when he thinks fondly of her home). None of the nine Spanish words that I counted are translated literally. Two words that are not translated at all are words that have no direct counterpart in English but are familiar to most English speakers – tortilla and salsa. The other seven words have contextual translations with clues given in the English text of the poems in which they appear. While there is no glossary provided, there is no doubt that he respects both his monolingual readers and his bilingual readers. He provides enough context to allow monolingual readers to understand the poem while not bogging down bilingual readers with unnecessary translation. In the one or two instances (rancheras, baile), monolingual readers may lean over to their bilingual friends to ask for a translation, but even if there is no one handy for a quick English version, the comprehension of the poem will not be hindered. The overall effect is a natural use of Spanish that enhances the English-based text and draws all readers into the poems, whether they are Hispanic American or from another culture.
Other features of the text that enhance its likeability include an introduction by Soto which gives some background on the development of his career and these poems in particular, an anecdote for each poem that supplies the reader with the back story for each one (sometimes clarifying whether or not the poem is autobiographical), and a Question/Answer section at the end where Soto addresses common questions he receives about his writing.
Gary Soto has won numerous awards, and his second collection of poetry The Tale of Sunlight (1978) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
4. REVIEW EXCERPTS
*Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA): “Soto explains that he writes poetry to give life to the small details of the days, moments that add up to life itself. The poems collected here are fine examples and excellent teaching tools to encourage teens to write about the small but ultimately meaningful experiences of their lives.”
*School Library Journal: “These simple, free-verse selections skillfully capture that which is commonplace and transforms it into something mesmerizing and lovely.”
*Booklist: “One of the best poems, Saturday at the Canal, captures the feelings of a teen sure that everything is happening somewhere else and dreaming of escape.”
5. CONNECTIONS
• Use Soto’s poems as models for writing lyric and narrative poems. He defines both and tells the reader where to find examples of each within the text.
• In the Q and A at the end of the volume, Soto stresses that poetry comes from everyday events and experiences, not special events or extraordinary occurrences. As a class, brainstorm personal experiences in various categories (i.e. embarrassing moments, sad/happy/scary moments, family memories, etc.) and select one to write about.
• For bilingual readers and writers, use Soto’s examples of contextual translations to try including words from the students’ home languages into English-based text. Analyze Soto’s use of words – how infrequently yet naturally he uses them, and how he translates them through contextual clues as models.
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