Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Peter Cooley

Critical Essay by Peter Cooley

[The Elements of San Joaquin] is a younger man's book; it isn't patronizing to say so. The poems lay down before us a period in the speaker's life which is only recently finished, the 1950's of his childhood. But Soto's first book is no nostalgic venture into "Happy Days." Soto is a Chicano, and probably the most important voice among the young Chicano poets because his poetry comes to us through poems, not propaganda in drag…. (p. 304)

A former student of Philip Levine, Soto shows stylistic affinities with what has been called "The Fresno School": short lines, a denuded vocabulary, an enumeration of small objects seen not as symbols but presences which build the speaker's situation. The single line is not of great interest in itself; in fact, it may sound "anti-poetic" to some ears. Soto has learned from Levine to enjamb a flat statement with another flat but...
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