Junior College
By Gary Soto
1997
First Published
3.63
Average Rating
96
Number of Pages
National Book Award finalist Gary Soto presents a collection of forty new poems that will bring a wry smile of recognition to anyone who endured the angst, anxiety, and misguided realities of childhood and adolescence. Here are poems about the mixed joys of owning a dog who is so obviously inferior to all others in the neighborhood; about the blessings of knowing Italian (thus becoming closer to the Pope and, hence, salvation); and about Soto's years attending junior college during the early '70s in search of truth (wisdom not being possible). The work of America's foremost Chicano poet resonates with the comic and the deadpan, and with a rare understanding that transcends the ordinary while remaining true to the heart.
Avg Rating
3.63
Number of Ratings
52
5 STARS
13%
4 STARS
48%
3 STARS
31%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
4%
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Author
Gary Soto
Author · 55 books
Gary Soto is the author of eleven poetry collections for adults, most notably New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly, Poetry International, and Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in the interview series Poets in Person. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. For ITVS, he produced the film “The Pool Party,” which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Film Excellence. In 1997, because of his advocacy for reading, he was featured as NBC’s Person-of-the-Week. In 1999, he received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association, and the PEN Center West Book Award for Petty Crimes. He divides his time between Berkeley, California and his hometown of Fresno.
