Saturday at the Canal

“Saturday by the Canal” is composed in one long stanza of 21 lines. As with the majority of Soto’s poetry, the poem is written in free verse, using a conversational tone with no formal structure such as metering or rhyme. This gives the poem a casual and accessible feel, as the author reflects on his under-privileged childhood in Fresno. Excluding the bookends of the first and the last sentences, the sentences within the poem tend to end and begin mid-line. For example:

Too close to dying to understand. The hallways

Stank of poor grades and unwashed hair. Thus,

A friend and I sat watching the water on a Saturday (Lines 5-7),

This structure adds momentum to the poem, carrying the reader from one thought to the next in the middle of a line. Thematically the poem is divided into three parts – unhappiness at school (Lines 1-6), dreaming of San Francisco at the canal (Line 6-14), and the wildness of youth (Lines 14-21). These transitions are not reflected in the format of the poem, but in the subtle effect of thoughts and experiences seamlessly bleeding into each other, just as the outer and inner life of the teen boy converge on one another. The straightforward bookends of Line 1 and Lines 20-21 open and conclude the poem; the one-sentence opening line emphasizes the reality of his disappointment, and the concluding sentence drives home the unsatisfied desire to leave town.

Soto uses both assonance and consonance in this poem to add some playfulness and whimsy to the overall tone of the poem. On Line 2, to emphasize the strict requirements of the high school and the perfunctory feel of daily attendance, he groups together the harsh sounds of “sharp check mark” (Line 2), where the percussive sound of the -p in “sharp” is immediately followed by the harsh -ch and -ck consonance of check mark. The grouping of these sounds likewise mimics the sound of a pencil on paper, rhythmically checking off names.

To add some comical effect, Soto also uses assonance in Line 3, with the “obnoxious tuba playing at noon” (Line 3). The long, drawn-out sounds of the vowels in “obnoxious tuba playing at noon” mimic the deep oomph-a sound of the tuba, while dragging out the experience for the reader as the speaker experiences it himself. Finally, Soto combines assonance and alliteration in the line “wild when / the wind picked up” (Lines 15-16), recreating the whimsical, whipping sound of the wind through the repetition of the “w” plus vowel sound of “wild when / the wind picked up” across Lines 15 and 16.