Description
Part of the California Poets Series, Downtime features new poems by Gary Soto, who describes his process:
The Monday when Daylight Savings, 2021, kicked in, I was left in the dark. The morning light appeared in our eastern window, then was gone by the time I finished washing the lunchtime dishes. The daytime was downright stingy in offering sunlight’s optimism.
A few days later, while I was on my couch with an Afghan around my legs, I sat up from my ten-minute nap, struck by a bright idea. I would write a hundred poems in a hundred days—why not? I pictured myself licking the end of a pencil to get them written in sort of a captain’s log—do it longhand, I told myself. I woke before sunrise, wrote, revised, and got a poem done by lunchtime. Ambitious me.
In truth this Hundred Poems Project was absurd. I knew—other poet friends knew—that more than half would end up the fireplace if not the angry teeth of our paper shredder. For me, that was a given. The act of writing mattered—keep it going, I told myself, be like a beaver and chew on a pencil, put down some lines, don’t forsake this craft! This private project of mine was a reminder to myself that after five decades I remain a poet, a calling few can claim.
I provide forty-seven of the one hundred poems written that fall. I like to think of this period as my downtime on the couch. The writing was anything but restful.
Gary Soto, born and raised in Fresno, California, is the author of thirteen poetry collections for adults, including New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Award and the National Book Award. He has received the Discovery-The Nation Prize and the California Library Association’s John and Patricia Award [twice], in addition to fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts [twice], and the Guggenheim Foundation. For ITVS, he produced the film “The Pool Party,” which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal. In 1995, for his work with young people, he was selected NBC Person of the Week. In 1999 he was honored with the Human and Civil Rights Award from the American Education Association, the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, and the PEN Center West Book Award for his young-adult short story collection PETTY CRIMES. For the Los Angeles Opera, he wrote the libretto to the opera “Nerdlandia.” In all, his books have sold five million copies, with eight titles translated into French, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. He lives in Berkeley, California.
