Gary Soto's 'Mexicans Begin Jogging'

Improved Essays
Poetry has a very complex and intellectual way of depicting life and the events that occur. They can describe love, hate, lust, anger, and sadness. They capture our inner feelings and our deepest of emotions. In more cases than others they have similar trends to each other. Poetry being that it is an art form, fall under the stereotype of art imitating reality and reality imitating art. Most poets have a trend when writing, which could include theme or genre. Gary Soto is a great example of this occurrence.
Gary Soto, a Mexican-American poet has used his admiration for those who have done a great service for citizens and of the Mexican culture to influence his works. His first poem, Mexicans Begin Jogging, has a sense of a double meaning

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Poetry is a way to express someone's feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. Poets use different literary devices to convey meaning, bring richness and clarity to their text. William Cullen Bryant and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow effectively used imagery in their writing. Both authors have similarities and differences in their work. For Bryant is was Thanatopsis, and for Longfellow it was The tide rises, the tide falls.…

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Gary Soto's Life And Work

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Gary Soto was born in Fresno, California on April 12th, 1952,. Gary father name is Manuel and mother name is Angie Soto. Gary parents like other Mexican Americans. They worked in San Joaquin Valley, the agricultural region surrounding Fresno. These jobs included picking crops such as oranges and cotton, or working in local businesses.…

    • 310 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gary Soto 4 Memoirs

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The authors of the four memoirs overcame their childhood obstacles by having support and help from family. Gary Soto had support and help from his family when he tries to find a job. Laurence Yep had support and help from his family when Laurence thought he was a disappointment. Barack Obama had support and help from his family when he had no friends. Julia Alvarez had support and help from her family when she had to leave her home.…

    • 814 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Gary Soto’s essay, “Looking for Work,” he reflects back to a time in his life when his goal was to transform his family into the classic “white picket fence” family he saw on television. As a Mexican-American boy, Soto became aware of how different his family was from everyone else. Determined to change that, Soto embarked on a mission to find work and accumulate money to raise his social class. In addition to looking for work Soto also encouraged his siblings and mom to change. He harbored an idea that money represented and created the perfect family.…

    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As a child, Gary Soto imagined that he would “marry Mexican poor, work Mexican hours, and in the end die a Mexican death, broke and in despair” (Soto, “Living Up The Street” 184). Although this may seem surprising coming from the renowned modern Chicano poet of “Saturday at the Canal”, it was the inevitable fate of many in his childhood community. Soto grew up in Fresno, California at the heart of San Joaquin Valley’s agricultural industry in the mid-20th century, where everyone in his family worked in a field or factory. He and his family were never able to envision a future unlike their present of near poverty and violence. As a Mexican-American, he was neither here nor there; he didn’t feel ties to either culture of his label.…

    • 1003 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The art of poetry is a vast discipline in which the creations of the poets take on a multitude of different forms. Not only are there a large number of poetic structures that an author can choose from, there are also many parts within those structures that can be modified to lead to an even more diverse array of final products. The author has a great many choice when it comes to choosing the structure of their poem, they can vary the number of lines per stanza, the length of each line, and the number of syllables per line. Other variations the poet can make include content changes such as choosing to use rhyming words, repeated sounds like alliteration, and figurative devices such as personification. Even in poetry forms with strict guidelines,…

    • 1475 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    I Am Joaquin Summary

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Torn by the inequalities and the inability to truly acclimate himself into mainstream society, Rodolfo Gonzales’, wrote the poem “I Am Joaquin” in 1967 . Rodolfo Gonzales created an epic poem that was able to convey the feelings of his community in conjunction to that of his own. What makes this narrative into an epic is the manner in which the conflict is not a solely against his self imposed identities, but instead the externalities of society, history, and culture. He places himself at the forefront of the conflict and battles against all the predisposed thoughts that circulate society. His internal conflict with society truly allows for him to revolutionize the manner in which Mexican Americans viewed themselves.…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When The racial prejudice continues when Soto is forced to run from border police. During the poem “Mexicans Begin Jogging” Soto’s is told by his fellow workers “Over the fence, Soto” (“Mexicans Begin Jogging”) this shows that he is being forced over the fence to run from border patrol. Soto chooses to run even though he doesn’t have to, I think this is symbolizing the theme of the story of going with the flow because he doesn’t have to run. He is running away from his problems of being stuck in between two different worlds.…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What is the importance of genre within poetry? I think through working with genre and some of its symbols, interpreting a piece of literature has a deeper meaning. Comparing and contrasting a piece to each other also brings up similar ideas and reoccurring themes that lead to drawing conclusions about human nature. While working with the poems Beowulf, Lanval, and Sir Gawain within their genres, I find that conditions within societies form a need of a hero figure but that hero varies with values of society and within different times in one’s life as seen with Northrop Frye’s idea of seasons connecting with genre.…

    • 1065 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    My interpretation of what poetry is most likely the same as what anyone else it is thinking; whatever the poet at the time wants it to be. Poetry is open to anything. It can express anger, happiness, hatred, fear, love, passion, joy and any other form of expressions known to man. Before this assignment I was not big on poetry outside of when it was required to read in school. I decided on the poem “To Change the World Enough” by Alice Walker, mainly because I was able to understand most of what the poem was saying.…

    • 1366 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Theme There are actually several themes that are central to this book. One reason is that there is so much that made this movement a success. One central theme was the leadership role that the three main subjects of the book played during this movement. Raul Ruiz, Gloria Arellanes and Rosalio Muñoz were three key activists of the Chicano civil rights and empowerment struggle.…

    • 745 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Literature Paper Poetry can be very complex and even though it can vary and use different techniques to get the point across it may come to the same conclusion and meaning, and can also be interpreted differently. Poetry is meant to be understood in the reader's own way. Why I Hate Raisins, Hand-Me-Down Halloween, and My Brother at 3AM are about the struggles of living in the reservation, but use different style, syntax and tone. Why I Hate Raisins is a poem about the struggles of not having enough food or not being able to afford food other than what they received. It is written in subtly and sounds simple, so the true meaning behind the poem is not really understood until the end, and has a deeper meaning.…

    • 1073 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To humans, the most essential part to living is communicating. We connect to one another through ways of expression such as music or literature. Poetry as a form of writing is a way to express feelings through rhythm and the use of specific words. In every poem, the author conveys a certain topic or emotion to the reader. The use of language, metaphors, and recurring themes is essential to the poet in sending the right message.…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Poetry is a means of human expression that exists because there are readers and writers who are involved and engaged in human experience. This essay will discuss the mariners experience about creation of god and his expressions towards it. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge reveals the importance of God’s creations and the appreciation individual ought to have for them, no matter how small or great.…

    • 669 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever contemplated that something may be so close yet so far? As such saying that goes by, “Good from far, far from good.” Truth be told, this is in fact in unity with what is Poetry and the Visual Arts. Therefore, the two are something that you can value, you can feel within yourself and understand more than life itself even if you don 't have it at arm 's length. Poetry could have its many controversies and its meanings between being deep, life touching, mind consuming and realistic.…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays