The opening lines of Gary Soto’s Human Nature, his thirteenth collection of original poetry, show his quirky approach to memory. In “The Dime-Store Parakeet,” the poem’s speaker describes a childhood pet, a parakeet that serves to provide ironic commentary:

The bird didn’t speak
Until the day I dropped my tortilla
And it said, “Ha-Ha.”
 
I dropped other things,
Like my report card in blazing flames.
The parakeet repeated, “Ha-Ha.”

Then I dropped big ideas,
Like the love for my brother,
Like the love for my country.
Like the love for the nine planets,
Like the love for God because I’m so small.

Humor mixed with melancholia for a lost youth has been a central feature of Soto’s poetry since his debut in the late 1970s with The Elements of San Joaquin (1977) and The Tale of Sunlight (1978), the latter of which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Known for his focus upon the Chicano-American experience, and in particular his own past, Soto rose to prominence as a West Coast poet. Human Nature affirms his status as more than a regional poet, delivering just what the title suggests: endearing portraits of a life. These poems look back upon his youth but are infused with a bittersweet mien that comes from a more middle-aged reflection upon the past. For example, the title of the poem “The Poet No Longer Thinks of Greatness, Just a Slender Space at Barnes & Noble” performs its own lament. Dreams of grandeur still exist but have now become fleeting:

I pictured hordes at bookstores,
And my book in the arms of babies
Teething on my words. I pictured the elderly
Fitting their lamps with 150-watt bulbs–
The greater the light, the stronger the learning.
Then I stalled.

The theme of wistfulness is also present in poems that look at past tragedies, such as the deaths of a school acquaintance in “Rounding Bases” and an uncle in “Some History About Raisins.” As is often the case with Soto’s work, his frank and witty commentary on political issues is refreshing, including issues as diverse as growing up Catholic (“Some Ideas About Jesus”) and the financial bailouts (“What the Federal Bailout Means to Me”). Also present are poems devoted to memories of sexuality or love and how the process of aging has redefined these fields. Included in this section are a few painfully confessional poems such as “Jumper Cables,” a poem about impotence. In “Something About the Moon, Something About Us,” the extreme distance that age has put between marriage and the present is evident:

Our Grown daughter paused at our wedding portrait
And asked, “Who are these people?”
Cold child, lovely child . . .
When I answered, “It’s your mom and me,”
She looked in wonder
As if she was staring at spiders in a glass case.
But we’re not spiders, not a lot of things,
Certainly not the black-haired couple in the photo.

At its core, the establishment of melancholia that persists throughout Human Nature does not represent a departure for Gary Soto, although certainly the focus on aspects of middle-age is quite a bit more pronounced. Rather, this collection suggests an evolution in his poetry, a natural progression from a memory poet focusing upon a wide array of topics to a poet more focused upon age and aging. Despite this shift, Gary Soto continues to employ the engaging and endearing style that has made him so successful.