nice, but boring

hey this is interesting i guess….but the thing is for me it would be really hard to write…i have to write a poem like this for language arts but i dunno how…….hmmmmm…i wish i could actually get help from like the author or sumthin im not that good with poetry!!! LOL neways i gotta go finish my Language arts i guess…and sadly with no help :( oh well…..well great poem bye!!!!

My God, I’ve been looking for this poem forever! Finally, I’ve found it! I must’ve first read this in seventh grade, and remembered loving straight up. Yay!

I LUV DIZ POEM. I READ IT ONCE IN MY 6TH GRADE CLASS AND I REMEMBERED THE NAME OF THE AUTHOUR AND EVERYTHING. AND NOW I AM WORKING ON IT FOR A POETRY PROJECT. SO YEA NICE, CUTE POEM! BYE!!!

My AP English teacher read this out in class and i absolutely fell in love with the poem. I’m also in film class, and we have to submit a film we have made and me and my best friend are going to adapt this into a 5 min short. SHould be fun, having a little trouble with the script, but i want it to have the same voice over that Joel did for Eternal Sunshin of the Spotless Mind.

good poem. If it made more sense to me it would be easy to write this response to literature essay. good poem… a little boring but still good… good thing i was paying attention in class or else it would take me forever to find this poem.

“Oranges” by Gary Soto is a poem that has been in our English book for every school year since third grade. Each year I seem to get something more out of the poem. Even though I have read this poem countless times, the last line in the poem is always the best. The words “Someone may have thought I was making fire in my hands.” just seem to go so well with the poem. I wonder how long it took Gary Soto (the writer) to find those perfect words. I doubt I could ever come up with them. I really like this poem

I like it.

well, my english teacher reccommended this poem to me for a project, and i like it. not becuase it shouldnt be to hard to memeorize, it just has this feel to it. of course now i have to write a two page paper…ya. i hate english class sometimes

beautiful.

kool… great to know that u guys love this poem and all that.. now wut does it mean… i dont get it….lol…. nyways u guys probably cant help me is due tommrow so yea

This poem is really good although i don’t get the point

hey i LOVED this poem n i LOVE gary soto!!! well ya i think that it was super duper sweet n that i juz discovered gary soto thiz year n i LOVE him!! KeEp iT uP!!!!

this poem is pretty good. not as confusing as most poems, too. that’s a good thing. lol. i first read this yesterday, in my 8th grade LA class. it’s not that hard 2 summerize it. yay!!!! lol. XD

bad

-Juice

it was alright i wish i could pay for stuff with an orange

yo. This poem was good. Yo. did u notice that i’m doing this assignment in school. The boy is sooo lucky. He gotta girl.
Well i’m a grl. I wish i gotta guy. ….. I think. W.E

good poem. but i got 1 question. y can he pay in oranges? i cant pay in candy wrapers. and hes in a drugstore. thats a little scary if u see what im saying….. good poem though 7th grade essays on poems r hard……

Oranges is okay because its not poetic enough to rymthe in power words but it has a feeling which is great. The problem I have with it is I don’t understand what it means. Sorry Garry but this poem sure as hell doesn’t make sense but its still okay. Why I saying this? I’m acting it out and my group doesn’t understand this poem but it sounds great so we need help [groan]

i love this poem,
other people dont like it because,
they dont understand it,
its awesome,
its my favorite peom!
thanks for writing it,
by the way if you didn’t know which you most likely do,
its in my literature book.
and i have a test on your poem in like three days.
i love it :]
thanks for writing it i really enjoyed it,
(i have to write one in the girls point of view.

I love this poem its cute and the literary techniques help me understand it.

The part when he pays with the orange isn’t literally about paying in oranges. lol It is the simple understanding between him and the cashier that lets it slide. She accepts it not for its physical value but for its symbolic value.

I love this poem and the techniques are done well to understand it easily. I’ve chosen this poem for my homework. we have to find a song that can go with 1 or 2 major parts of the poem. Any suggestions? :)

Gary soto was up.Im in the 7th grade
and the teachers keep talking about the
poems lol. I undertand the poem alittle bit.
Gary soto poems r so confusing.

I read this poem in class and at the end every 1 say awww

well, for those of you who dont understand the poem, here is my view of it,

it isn’t neccisarily about oranges, its more about a boy who likes oranges, as he goes to the drug store with the girl he wants to make her happy so i he lets her buy somthing, when she wants somthing that is too expensive for him he ends up giving the cashier an orange, which is somthing that seems to be very important to him, this whos that he likes the girl even more than the orange…. well thats what i get out of it,
i think its a great poem

I read this poem in the 7th grade, and have been trying to find in since.

i’m in the 8th grade and i read this it’s awesome i have to do a test on it.

This is an excellent poem. I wonder though, when did it happen, and how old are the characters? Or at least, how old do you think they are?

Assuming the fellow is taking this from his own experience, it could take place anywhere from the late 50s to the mid 60s. I wasn’t around back then, but I don’t think the economy was such that a chocolates would be sold for a dime, was it?

As to their age, I’m going to say I think they’re as young as 8 or 10, despite the fact that she’s wearing makeup. The poem’s perspective is far too childlike to be much older I think.

…I should learn not to post things based on readings I did at 4 in the morning. The second line states the boy is 12. X’D

THIS POEM IS REALLY GOOD i WISH i WROTE IT

Dis Poem is sooooooooooooooooooooo good!!! I read n class and feel n luv wit da moment I started readin da first sentence!!!!

xoxo
Shei

I have to write a critique of this poem and I really like it but I’m confused about the last line. Can someone help?

What do you find confusing about the last line, and why?

well i liked this poem…it seems like one of the best poems we have read in english…well one of the most one’s people tend to understand…but i have to agree with most ppl that …the last line is the best!!!! well i hope everyone enjoys reading this poem has much as i did!!

I am confused about the last lines too!
What does “some distance” refer to?
Also, what is the signifiance of “someone”? And what does the fire symbolise?

Also why is the title “Oranges”?

These questions are all bombing my head!

“That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.”

Okay, he’s got orange peels in his hands.. bright orange against a grey sky.

From far away, it could look like he had fire in his hands.

However, the important part is the someone or the distance, but the fire. The fire symbolizes power or confidence. At the beginning, the boy is shy, it’s his first time with a girl and he wants it to go well.. etc.
At the end they are walking together holding hands, and if you notice she becomes “my girl” not a girl buy “my girl”,

so.. the fire is just showing that he has grown and has become more mature or has “become a man”

I love this poem…I don’t think it’s that difficult to understand, one just has to read into it a little further (no pun intended). Notice that Soto describes everything in the environment around him as cold, gray, and dreary. But everything that has to do with the girl is bright and colorful–the rouge on her face, the light in her eyes, her porch light, the oranges he used to pay for her candy…all charectarized by light, a light in a dull world. I think this is beautifull written–definitely one of my favorite poems.

this poem is nice… a little hard to understand but its good… see i have this assignment thats due in a few days and i have to find what the author’s message is… so i have to figure out what it is…. im not really sure about this

This is a very good poem. Probably the best in the whole art of Poetry. i came to this website to read your poem because my Language Arts teacher made me because we have to do a project. I’m very interested in reading other stories from you and also want to thank you for being such a good authour and also the story ‘ Seventh Grade’ rocks!!!!!

This poem is beast it inspired me to write my own poem and it is in my english book

i absolutely and totally luv this poem…it is my favorite of ALL time….it is soooo sweet….i LOVE it

i just got done reading this poem in my 7th grade English class and it was adorable. i have read it over and over again. it is a great poem!!

the reason some of you may not understand this poem is because maybe your confused about why the oranges are so important? if so, the oranges are important because Gary Soto’s parents worked as laborers picking oranges. His parents were paid very little for this, and could barely support the family. That is why the clerk is so understanding when he makes up for the 5 cents by paying with an orange.

I need an analyses of Orange poem.

awsome poem

I think this is the best poem I ever read in my life because it has great feelings about other people in the poem by Gary Soto

I think this poem by Gary Soto is very great because it brings joy to kids that when you walk a girl home or just walk with her it feels good that you could take a girl out so thats why this is my favorite poem

if one more person calls this poem “cute,” I’m going to puke. Jesus Christ. What possesses someone to say “Cute” after reading about a kid who is so poor, he can’t cough up a nickel? A sentimental reading if ever there was one.

I readed this book but for me was too fificult to understand because have many word that i dont know cuz iam learning englis but when my teacher help me alot

I recently read this poem in my 8th grade language arts class. Everyone, even the guys, loved the poem. I love all the literary elements that it contains. The writer is very talented and I think it’s cool that he can look back on his childhood and write this really nice poem about his first girlfriend. If you think about the time period, 10 cents was a lot of money. The clerk who checked out his items , looked at him. She probably knew him and accepted the orange as payment, because it was wintertime and summertime fruit was rare. It was also cool that the Gary bought two oranges, so that while his girlfriend ate her choclate, he would have his orange to eat. I really like the last lines, because they really wrap up the poem. He says that his orange was so bright in the cold and dark winter day that someone from far awy may think that he was making a fire in his hand. I can really imagine that in my mind. I hope that anyone who reads this poem will enjoy it, understand, and learn from it like am.

@ Liz

I think the poem’s cute, even though I’m a guy… but not for the reasons you put down.

I just got this poem today in 9th Grade Eng

—

The boy goes out with a girl (literally) and they go to a nice cozy drugstore.

The boy lets the girl choose any candy she wants, which he’d buy. The girl chooses a 10ct chocolate of which the boy only has 5cts.

He brings the chocolate, his nickel and the orange to the clerk and hopes that the clerk would accept it.

The clerk sees the boy and the girl and ‘knows’. He/she knows that the boy is trying to impress the girl and would lose a lot of face if he (the clerk) rejected the boy because he didn’t have enough to buy the chocolate.

They go back outside and the girl and the boy share their foods, the boy and orange and the girl a piece of chocolate.

In contrast with the bleak and gray enviorment, the orange is bright, like a ‘fire’ in his hands. This brightness represents the love shared between the two children after the boy’s gift and the clerk’s charity.

this peom is so romantic i wish a boy would do that for me….. and i want chocoalte to be 10 cents also, but i dont think that will happen!

the poem is great i understand just about most of it and honostly no disrespect to gary in anyway but i have read better. I write in my spare time and his choice of how he decided to lay down the main point was unclaer. You can argue many points but when i write i leave the reader with some detail and he/she can go with what he/she wants to make it sould have tred it that way. Still exclent poem just could have done better in my opnion hopes he writes another poem soon.

i loved this poem and it reminded me of my boyfriend and how i feel when im with him

i thaught that this would be a poem that was about oranges. but nooo the poem is so boring but i still dont get why he could buy the chocolate with an orange and a nickel~

this poem rocks socks i red it in 7th garde and 6th grade and it gets me every time

i never would really get into the poems that we would have to read in class, but in 7th grade when i heard this i fell in love with it. but when i tried finding it later i couldnt remember the name. i searched and searched and i finally found it. :]

I love this poem x333
its so cuute, i totally get it.

hey i really loved ur poems but these one is like the best 1 i read in class. keep it up w/the love poems that is going 2 come out in 2009. i hope that they are bettter than thise 1, byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
ur #1 fan nancy

i like this poems so much
it is so cute