JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA, POET

“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 has two new books released March 2004: The Importance of a Piece of Paper (Grove/Atlantic) and Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande (New Directions). His books also include: A Place to Stand, Healing Earthquakes, C-Train & Thirteen exicans, 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.

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 20-30 people.