EL POETA centers on Reyes Rivera, a working-class Chicano in his early twenties, who comes to befriend the barrio poet. Like many rural, working-class Chicanos, Reyes lacks a formal education having had to choose a life of labor out of familial necessity. Yet, Reyes does not allow his passion for the written word to leave him, and he pursues reading for personal edification, as both an intellectual pursuit and escape. Reyes comes to learn about a local poet who spends his days drinking and reciting poetry at a local cantina. The two bibliophiles strike up a conversation and begin sharing stories and theories about literature that men of their social standing rarely understood much less mastered. EL POETA reveals the enormous unifying power of the written word that can bring strangers together-even those lacking any means-and that carries them to new places.