Poetry Lover

by Gary Soto

Twenty years ago, when Silver Mendez was the youthful author of two published books of poetry, he bragged that he was the first Chicano to write in complete sentences. His career has been going steadily downhill ever since. But a letter from Spain may change his luck. Silver is invited to Madrid to participate in a conference on Chicano literature. Now all he needs is money-for a plane ticket, a new passport, and a place to stay. And oh, yes-he needs to be able to send e-mail from Spain. Silver, a poet without a job, a home, or even a typewriter to his name, has his work cut out for him. His old friend Al Sanchez, a body and fender man who used to play drums in a rock band, is tapped out and angry because Silver never repaid Al's last loan. But even in the face of these imposing obstacles, Silver is determined not to miss this chance at the life a poet should live.

Gary Soto introduced us to Silver in Nickel and Dime, where the homeless poet crossed paths with an assortment of other hard-luck Oakland compadres. Here once again Soto's virtuoso ability to combine humor and pathos etches a warmhearted portrait of the stumbling Silver. Even while we laugh at his misadventures, we cheer him on as he lurches toward a new life with an old love.

214 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2001

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Mike Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this to be a quickly read romp with plenty of entertainment value. Soto knows how to coin a unique phrase and made his madcap Oakland scene come alive with colorful characters. I was hoping for more from one of the standouts of Chicano literature but maybe his poetry is where he stands out.