One Kind of Faith

In this new collection of poems, Gary Soto once again displays his impressive poetic range- funny, sad, urbane, nave. He digs deeply into his California hometown of Fresno and explores the wonder of the everyday in an ever-shifting world. In Soto's poems, precocious Berkeley dogs practice feng shui, raisins march out of a factory under the nose of the night watchman, and shirts are ironed "with the steam of Mother's hate." In the darker second part of the collection, Soto offers 12 "film treatments for David Lynch." What skincrawling delight Lynch could conjure with the tightwad furniture salesmen who meets his death in a pool "blue as toilet wash." Then, back from the brink, Soto presents in the final section a single long poem as graceful and meditative as anything he's written to date. One Kind of Faith confirms Gary Soto's immense talent and will bring his voice to an even wider audience.