What Poets Are Like: Up and Down with the Writing Life
Soto has written more than 35 books for young readers and 11 poetry collections for adults and won many awards, and he now reflects on the nature of the writing life. His charming, thought-provoking  vignettes about everything from receiving his MFA by mail to domestic downsizing are best read one or a few at at time. This enables readers to better savor his sometimes rueful wit and appreciation of time passing, as in his attempt to perfectly align adjacent window blinds. He observes, “Rivers make poets dream . . . and long for adventure.” “Reading poetry is an act of attention . . . you conjure a scene and do your best to understand its meaning—or at least gauge its level of feeling . . . less suggests laziness.” As one reads and mulls over these brief glimpses into Soto’s literary mind, his words expand their meaning, application, and worth like flowers from seeds. Soto describes “lakes of memory filling my eyes,” and recalls “the geese darkening the sky of an autumn afternoon . . . winging south, their eyes filled with the memory of lakes.” So, too, do the essays gathered here fill and nourish us. --Whitney Scott