Muni Art 2021 - Gary Soto Poet Page

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Stars

At dusk the first stars appear.
Not one eager finger points toward them.
A little later the stars spread with the night
And an orange moon rises
To lead them, like a shepherd, toward dawn.

“Stars,” from The Elements of San Joaquin. Copyright © 2018 Gary Soto. Used with Permission from the Author and Chronicle Books, LLC.

Gary Soto

Headshot of Muni Art 2021 Poet Gary Soto

Gary Soto has published more than forty books for children, young adults and adults, including Baseball in April, Living Up the Street, A Summer Life, Buried Onions and The Afterlife. He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts (twice). His New and Selected Poems was a 1995 finalist for both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Artist Interpretations

Kundan Baidwan

Columns of white dots arranged as if they were wires suspending a bridge over a black night with a brown moon in the sky

Agustina Caprioglio

Houses, trees, and electric wires with the bay and the Marin Headlands behind under a night sky with the stars and moonlight reflecting off the bay. The moon is stylized to light up the sky around it in yellowish orange.

John Keating

Seven people in small groups, some seen wearing face masks with or without covering the nose and one with no face mask, walking about, one with a dog. There are phone poles, a moon, and green stars and blue night sky above.

Deirdre Weinberg

Birds fly with the reddish-orange moon and a V-shape of stars above them. Below the birds are horizontal red and magenta strips separated by black lines.

Wes Wellner

A suited male walks past a brick wall under a street lamp, surrounded by darkness, with the downtown skyline, moon and stars in the background.