Jimmy Santiago Baca
Poet, Memoirist & Novelist
Author, A Place to Stand
“Baca writes with unconcealed passion . . . and manifests both an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythical and archetypal significance of life events.” —Denise Levertov
“The search for a genuine identity is a common theme in American literature. . . . Baca eloquently and poignantly portrays himself as someone who aches to lead his people to freedom much with the sweeping exuberance of Walt Whitman or dark determination of Martin Luther King, Jr.” —Modern American Poetry
“I don't know if I would have lived had I not found poetry.” —Jimmy Santiago Baca
Born in New Mexico of Chicano and Apache descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was raised first by his grandmother and was later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age thirteen, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison at the age of twenty-one that he began to turn his life around: there he learned to read and write and found his passion for poetry. Like many Southwestern writers, Baca identifies with the land around him and the myths that are part of his culture. He is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the National Poetry Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award, and, for his memoir A Place To Stand, the prestigious International Award.
Baca's first novel, A Glass of Water (2009), has been released to critical acclaim. He had two books released March 2004: The Importance of a Piece of Paper (Grove/Atlantic) and Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande (New Directions). Other books include: A Place to Stand, Healing Earthquakes, C-Train & Thirteen Mexicans, Black Mesa Poems, Martin & Meditations on the South Valley, and Immigrants in Our Own Land. His poems reveal an honest, passionate voice and powerful imagery full of the dark jewels of the American Southwest landscape (llanos, mesas, and chiles) and the chaotic urban landscape (nightclubs, rusty motors, and bricks) woven into a rich lyricism sprinkled with Spanish. It is this style and careful attention to language that won him an American Book Award in poetry from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1988 for Martin and Meditations on the South Valley.
Baca has devoted his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship. His themes include American Southwest barrios, addiction, injustice, education, community, love and beyond. He has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities throughout the country. He is also producing a two hour documentary about the power of literature and how it can change lives.
Movie scripts and productions include Bound by Honor (Blood In, Blood Out), Hollywood Pictures/Disney, and The Lone Wolf —The Story of Pancho Gonzalez, HBO Productions.In addition to traditional poetry readings, Jimmy Santiago Baca is available to read in community centers, high schools, and/or prisons. He will also lead writing workshops for twenty to thirty people.
In 2005 he created Cedar Tree Inc., a nonprofit foundation that works to give people of all walks of life the opportunity to become educated and improve their lives. Cedar Tree provides free instruction, books, writing material and scholarships. Cedar Tree has an ongoing writing workshop in the Albuquerque Women’s Prison and at the South Valley Community Center. Cedar Tree also has an Internship program that provides live-in writing scholarships at Wind River Ranch, and in the south valley of Albuquerque. The program allows students, writers and poets the opportunity to write, attend poetry readings, conduct writing workshops, and work on documentary film production.
About A GLASS OF WATER (2009)
"This book is the best antidote around to the sorrowful, dehumanizing discourse on undocumented immigrants going on in Washington. Hard economic times always translate into extra misery for the more vulnerable. Ay, and we used to be known as the land where people were given a fair chance!"—Ilan Stavans
Jimmy Santiago Baca's first novel, A Glass of Water, is a gripping tale of family, loyalty, ambition, and revenge, which offers us a glimpse into the tragedies unfurling at this very moment at and around our country's borders. The promise of a new beginning brings Casimiro and Nopal together when they are young immigrants, having made the nearly deadly journey across the border from Mexico. They settle into a life of long days in the chili fields, and in a few years their happy union yields two sons, Lorenzo and Vito. But when Nopal is brutally murdered, the boys are left to navigate life in this brave but capricious new world without her. Lorenzo follows in his father's footsteps, devoting himself to the land, and falling in love with a beautiful, idealistic student who comes to the migrant camp to study and improve the lives of its workers. Vito, hot-blooded and restless, breaks away and soon finds fame as an itinerant boxer, gaining notoriety in the ring and out. The brothers' journeys will eventually converge and bring them face to face with a common enemy. A Glass of Water is a searing, heartfelt tribute to brotherhood, and an arresting portrait of the twisted paths people take to claim their piece of the ever-elusive American dream.
