Jimmy Santiago Baca's Books

A Place to Stand

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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The Pushcart Prize–winning poet’s memoir of his criminal youth and years in prison: a “brave and heartbreaking” tale of triumph over brutal adversity (The Nation). Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “astonishing narrative” of his life before, during, and immediately after the years he spent in the maximum-security prison garnered tremendous critical acclaim. An important chronicle that “affirms the triumph of the human spirit,” it went on to win the prestigious 2001 International Prize (Arizona Daily Star). Long considered one of the best poets in America today, Baca was illiterate at the age of twenty-one when he was sentenced to five years in Florence State Prison for selling drugs in Arizona. This raw, unflinching memoir is the remarkable tale of how he emerged after his years in the penitentiary—much of it spent in isolation—with the ability to read and a passion for writing poetry. “Proof there is always hope in even the most desperate lives.” —Fort Worth Star-Telegram “A hell of a book, quite literally. You won’t soon forget it.” —The San Diego U-T “This book will have a permanent place in American letters.” —Jim Harrison, New York Times–bestselling author of A Good Day to Die

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Page Count

276

Publisher

Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published Date

ISBN 10

1555848907

ISBN 13

9781555848903

Singing at the Gates

Selected Poems

By: Jimmy Baca

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Singing at the Gates

Selected Poems

By: Jimmy Baca

Award-winning writer Jimmy Santiago Baca, a vital voice in American poetry, weaves personal and political threads to create a pertinent and poignant narrative infused with vigor and passion, emotional grace and vivid sensory detail. Singing At The Gates is a collection of new and previously published poems that reflect back over four decades of Baca’s life. These are poems that revitalize the national dialogue: raging against war and imprisonment, celebrating family and the bonds of friendship, heightening appreciation for and consciousness of the environment. A career-spanning selection, it includes his early work as a budding poet, written while serving a five-year prison sentence; poems drawn from Baca’s first chapbook; and recent pieces meditating on the significance of breaking through oppression. Singing at the Gates displays the breadth and depth of Baca's poetic power—with irreverent charm and disarming freedom of mind and soul. The vital pulse of love abiding in these poems will affirm and reaffirm, for both longtime and newfound readers, his devotion to truth and beauty.

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Page Count

290

Publisher

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802122108

ISBN 13

9780802122100

American Orphan

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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American Orphan

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

“There’s no way you can do this reentry thing,” Orlando Lucero tells himself after getting out of prison. He has spent most of his life institutionalized, first in an orphanage and then in the Denver Youth Authority for smuggling weed. Orlando knows nothing about freedom. What does one do with it? What is it? His brother promised to teach him the carpentry trade, but Orlando quickly discovers Camilo is—like their parents—an addict, robbing and stealing to feed his habit. So he turns to Lila, his prison pen pal who encouraged both his poetry writing and sexual fantasies. Soon he moves in with her and engages in the acts he dreamed about while incarcerated, but living the straight life seems impossible. “Freedom is full of hazards, lots of sharp edges, and they cut me at every turn.” As he is sucked back into a life of crime, he can’t help but think going back to prison would be a relief. Renowned poet Jimmy Santiago Baca explores in lyrical prose one young man’s attempts to break free from the cycle of addiction, violence and abuse that contributed to his imprisonment and impede his search for happiness and a productive life. In a society that considers him a criminal because of his brown skin, and where those in authority—including a parade of priests when he was just a boy—take advantage of him, Orlando must learn to believe in himself against all the odds, in spite of the institutionalized racism he has endured since boyhood.

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221

Publisher

Arte Publico Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1518506399

ISBN 13

9781518506390

Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

New poetry by the Champion of the International Poetry Slam and winner of the Before Columbus American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the prestigious new International Award.

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116

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

081121575X

ISBN 13

9780811215756

Martín and Meditations on the South Valley: Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Martín and Meditations on the South Valley: Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

Fiercely moving, the two long narrative poems of Martín & Meditations on the South Valley revolve around the semi-autobiographical figure of Martin, a mestizo or "detribalized Apache." Fiercely moving, the two long narrative poems of Martín & Meditations on the South Valley revolve around the semi-autobiographical figure of Martin, a mestizo or "detribalized Apache." Abandoned as a child and a long time on the hard path to building his own family, Martin at last finds his home in the stubborn and beautiful world of the barrio. Jimmy Santiago Baca "writes with unconcealed passion," Denise Levertov states in her introduction, “but he is far from being a naive realist; what makes his writing so exciting to me is the way in which it manifests both an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythic and archetypal significance of life-events.

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130

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811223329

ISBN 13

9780811223324

Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

Jimmy Santiago Baca continues his daily pilgrimage through the meadows, riverbanks, and bosques of the Rio Grande where winter dies, spring explodes, and inextricable links between the human spirit and the natural world are revealed, chronicling and expanding upon those in his recent Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande. In Spring Poems the words of the river "rise around thorny thickets / then descend again into the burbling stubble," and the poet surrenders himself to this place where his own words are woven by "a thumbnail-sized yellow spider/ with poppy seed eyes."--Amazon.com.

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100

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811216853

ISBN 13

9780811216852

Immigrants in Our Own Land & Selected Early Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Immigrants in Our Own Land & Selected Early Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

Immigrants in Our Own Land & Selected Early Poems is a new, expanded edition of Jimmy Santiago Baca's best-selling first book of poetry (originally published by Louisiana State University Press in 1979). A number of poems from early, now unavailable chapbooks have also been included so that the reader can at last have an overview of Baca's remarkable literary development. Immigrants in Our Own Land & Selected Early Poems is a new, expanded edition of Jimmy Santiago Baca's best-selling first book of poetry (originally published by Louisiana State University Press in 1979). A number of poems from early, now unavailable chapbooks have also been included so that the reader can at last have an overview of Baca's remarkable literary development. The voice of Immigrants will be familiar to readers of the widely praised Martín & Meditations on the South Valley and Black Mesa Poems (New Directions, 1987 and 1989), but the territory may not be. Most of the poems in this collection were written while the author was in prison, where he taught himself to read and write. All the poems are concerned with the incarcerated or the disenfranchised; they all communicate the sting from the backhand of the American promise. As Denise Levertov has noted, Baca "is far from being a naive realist," but of poverty and prejudice, of material that is truly raw, he "writes in unconcealed passion.

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102

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811223310

ISBN 13

9780811223317

Black Mesa Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Black Mesa Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

A collection of poems that grows out of the American Southwest focusing on family and community life of the barrio sharing births and deaths, neighbors and seasons, and injustices and victories.

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150

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811211029

ISBN 13

9780811211024

Martín ; &, Meditations on the South Valley

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Martín ; &, Meditations on the South Valley

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

Fiercely moving, the two long narrative poems of Mart�n & Meditations on the South Valley revolve around the semi-autobiographical figure of Martin, a mestizo or "detribalized Apache." Abandoned as a child and a long time on the hard path to building his own family, Martin at last finds his home in the stubborn and beautiful world of the barrio. Jimmy Santiago Baca "writes with unconcealed passion," Denise Levertov states in her introduction, "but he is far from being a naive realist; what makes his writing so exciting to me is the way in which it manifests both an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythic and archetypal significance of life-events.

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104

Publisher

New Directions Publishing Corporation

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811210316

ISBN 13

9780811210317

Working in the Dark

Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio

By: Jimmy Baca

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Working in the Dark

Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio

By: Jimmy Baca

Baca passionately explores the troubled years of his youth, from which he emerged with heightened awareness of his ethnic identify as a Chicano, his role as a witness for the misunderstood tribal life of the barrio, and his redemptive vocation as a poet.

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127

Publisher

UNM Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0890135932

ISBN 13

9780890135938

The Lucia Poems

Breaking Bread with the Darkness II

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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The Lucia Poems

Breaking Bread with the Darkness II

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

American Book Award-winning poet Jimmy Santiago Baca endured years in the penal system before becoming a writer and a father. In these collections of strikingly expressive verse, Baca celebrates parenthood and presents the complexities of adult life in the age of 9/11 and the Iraq War. An essential voice in world poetry, Baca chronicles the changes that envelop him upon the birth of his children, Lucia and Esai. Recalling the works of other poets who passed through the horrors of extreme experience–Nazim Hikmet, Paul Celan, Joseph Brodsky, Alexander Wat, Otto René Castillo, and more–The Lucia Poems and The Esai Poems give poignant acknowledgement to one generation’s failings and pass on humane advice to the next. Taken together as Breaking Bread with the Darkness, these two collections offer a poetic primer for paternity, and a model for teaching history, politics, spirituality, and survival. Jimmy Santiago Baca is an award-winning poet, internationally known for his lyrical, politically charged verse. Of Apache and Chicano ancestry, at the age of twenty-one he was convicted on drug charges and spent over six years in prison, where he found his voice as a poet through correspondence with Denise Levertov of Mother Jones. His books include the poetry collections C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans, Set This Book on Fire, Black Mesa Poems, Poems Taken from My Yard, and What's Happening; a memoir, A Place to Stand; a play, Los tres hijos de Julia; a screenplay for the film Blood In Blood Out; and the novel A Glass of Water. He has published three eBooks with Restless Books: The Face and two Breaking Bread with the Darkness poetry volumes. Baca is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award, and, for A Place to Stand, the prestigious International Award. 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, and cultural difference. He regularly conducts writing workshops in prisons, community centers, and universities throughout the country.

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137

Publisher

Restless Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0989983234

ISBN 13

9780989983235

C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans

Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans

Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

The award-winning poet and author of A Place to Stand crafts provocative portraits of addiction and the Mexican American experience. Jimmy Santiago Baca’s brilliantly received memoir, A Place to Stand, earned him the prestigious International Prize and offered a keyhole view into the brutal personal history that shaped—and continues to inform—his raw, incisive voice. A heart-stopping series of episodes about addiction, C-Train features Dream Boy, a young man who finds himself seduced, and later enslaved, by the siren song of cocaine. Part paean to the delicious power of intoxication, part lament for those helplessly under its power, C-Train is a ride its hero, and the reader, struggle to get off. In Thirteen Mexicans, Baca writes of the Chicano community and the gulf between the American dream and American reality. In searing, elegiac vignettes he portrays the raw beauty of life in the barrio and the surreal, stomach-turning moment when people of color must confront how they are reflected in the distorted mirror of white society. Giving voice to the dispossessed and the disenfranchised, Baca confirms his place as one of the nation’s leading poets, whose words “heal, inspire, and elicit the earthly response of love” (Garrett Hongo). “[Baca] writes with . . . an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythic and archetypal significance of life-events.” —Denise Levertov “[Baca] travels outward and inward as a Chicano in America, with all the complications that the identity entails. . . . [He is] a poet in control of his craft . . . whose voice, brutal yet tender, is unique in America.” —The Nation

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Page Count

164

Publisher

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802198554

ISBN 13

9780802198556

Stories from the Edge

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Stories from the Edge

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

Accompanying grades 6-12 teacher's book, "Adolescents on the edge" and to be used in classrooms in conjunction with this volume for students.

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Heinemann Educational Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0325029482

ISBN 13

9780325029481

When I Walk Through That Door, I Am

An Immigrant Mother's Quest

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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When I Walk Through That Door, I Am

An Immigrant Mother's Quest

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

Poet-activist Jimmy Baca immerses the reader in an epic narrative poem, imagining the experience of motherhood in the context of immigration, family separation, and ICE raids on the Southern border. Jimmy Santiago Baca sends us on a journey with Sophia, an El Salvadorian mother facing a mountain of obstacles, carrying with her the burden of all that has come before: her husband’s murder, a wrenching separation from her young son at the border, then rape and abuse at the hands of ICE, yet persevering: “I keep walking/carrying you in my thoughts,” she repeats, as she wills her boy to know she is on a quest to find him.

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Beacon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807059471

ISBN 13

9780807059470

The Esai Poems

Breaking Bread with the Darkness I

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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The Esai Poems

Breaking Bread with the Darkness I

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Page Count

114

Publisher

Restless Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0989983226

ISBN 13

9780989983228

The Face

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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The Face

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

In this beautiful, boisterous account, by turns soul-searching and erotic, acclaimed Chicano and Native-American poet Jimmy Santiago Baca reveals the story of his life as told through his face. An orphan, a runaway, and an inmate in a maximum-security prison before he became a world-renowned writer, Baca’s life has been touched with rapture and despair. “In my eagerness to thrust forth and excel in life,” Baca writes, “I found fame in all the wrong places.” Presented by Restless Books as part of a series of essays featuring some of the world’s most distinctive voices, this installment of The Face is Baca’s meditation on the different faces we show the world, and the ways in which the world marks us with its joy and sorrow. With echoes of Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda, Baca speaks for a people alienated by history, in search of their own recognizable faces. The Face is the record of a lasting quest for self-recognition by one of our most distinguished poets. Jimmy Santiago Baca is an award-winning poet, internationally known for his lyrical, politically charged verse. Of Apache and Chicano ancestry, at the age of twenty-one he was convicted on drug charges and spent over six years in prison, where he found his voice as a poet through correspondence with Denise Levertov of Mother Jones. His books include the poetry collections C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans, Set This Book on Fire, Black Mesa Poems, Poems Taken from My Yard, and What's Happening; a memoir, A Place to Stand; a play, Los tres hijos de Julia; a screenplay for the film Blood In Blood Out; and the novel A Glass of Water. He has published three eBooks with Restless Books: The Face and two Breaking Bread with the Darkness poetry volumes. Baca is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award, and, for A Place to Stand, the prestigious International Award. 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, and cultural difference. He regularly conducts writing workshops in prisons, community centers, and universities throughout the country.

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Restless Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0989983218

ISBN 13

9780989983211

The Importance of a Piece of Paper

Stories

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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The Importance of a Piece of Paper

Stories

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

“In Jimmy Santiago Baca’s haunting story collection, intricate family dramas . . . play out against the luminous, wide-open backdrop of New Mexico.” —Los Angeles Times In his first foray into short fiction, award-winning poet and memoirist Jimmy Santiago Baca explores the territory where old-world traditions meet new-world ambitions, and characters try to make something of themselves, while keeping their souls intact. In “Matilda’s Garden,” an old farmer pines for his wife of fifty years who died in her sleep one-night months before. He is lured to the garden in the middle of the night by what he thinks is her presence, only to meet a gruesome fate. In “The Importance of a Piece of Paper,” two siblings must face the brother who has betrayed them by selling his share of the family land, leaving an entire community vulnerable. In “The Three Sons of Julia,” a long-suffering mother whose one request is that all her sons come home for the Fourth of July, watches her dream burst as two of her sons—one a successful businessman and the other a hard-drinking ex-con—nearly destroy her house, and each other. Merging a refreshing innocence with a profound understanding of the world’s brutality, The Importance of a Piece of Paper is a daring and arresting work that is at once fearless, tender, and inspiring. “[Baca] continues to mine his experience, exploring conflicts between the rich traditions of Chicano culture and a modern world impatient with them.” —Entertainment Weekly “Inspirational, tragic, and redeeming . . . Baca provides moving poetic imagery and unleashes his gift for finely crafted sensory detail.” —Rocky Mountain News

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Page Count

197

Publisher

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1555848915

ISBN 13

9781555848910

Selected Poems/Poemas Selectos

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Selected Poems/Poemas Selectos

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

“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 Champion of the International Poetry Slam, winner of the Before Columbus American Book Award, the International Hispanic Heritage Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the prestigious International Award, Jimmy Santiago Baca has been writing as a mestizo (part Native American, part Mexican) and an outsider ever since he learned to read and write—in English—during a six-year Federal prison sentence when he was in his twenties. Drawing on his rich ethnic heritage and his life growing up in poverty in the Southwestern United States, Baca has a created a body of work which speaks to the disenfranchised by drawing on his experiences as a prisoner, a father, a poet, and by reflecting on the lush, and sometimes stark, landscape of the Rio Grande valley. In response to increased demand for Latino poetry in Spanish, and to thousands of Baca fans who are bilingual, this unique collection contains Spanish translations of Baca’s poetry selected from the volumes Martín and Mediations on the South Valley (1987), Black Mesa Poems (1989), Immigrants in Our Own Land (1990), Healing Earthquakes (2001), C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans (2002), Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande (2004), and Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande (2007).

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Page Count

277

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811223337

ISBN 13

9780811223331

A Place to Stand

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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A Place to Stand

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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276

Publisher

Open Road + Grove/Atlantic

Published Date

ISBN 10

1555848907

ISBN 13

9781555848903

Adolescents on the Edge

Stories and Lessons to Transform Learning

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca,ReLeah Cossett Lent

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Adolescents on the Edge

Stories and Lessons to Transform Learning

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca,ReLeah Cossett Lent

Fusing Jimmy Santiago Baca's talents as a writer of memoir with ReLeah Cossett Lent's expertise in building and empowering collaborative learning communities, this book offers a completely new approach to reaching at-risk adolescents.--[book cover].

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Page Count

175

Publisher

Heinemann Educational Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0325026912

ISBN 13

9780325026916

Black Mesa Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Black Mesa Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

A collection of poems that grows out of the American Southwest focusing on family and community life of the barrio sharing births and deaths, neighbors and seasons, and injustices and victories.

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Page Count

150

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811211029

ISBN 13

9780811211024

Martín & Meditations on the South Valley

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca,Denise Levertov

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Martín & Meditations on the South Valley

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca,Denise Levertov

Fiercely moving, the two long narrative poems of Martín & Meditations on the South Valley revolve around the semi-autobiographical figure of Martin, a mestizo or "detribalized Apache." Abandoned as a child and a long time on the hard path to building his own family, Martin at last finds his home in the stubborn and beautiful world of the barrio. Jimmy Santiago Baca "writes with unconcealed passion," Denise Levertov states in her introduction, "but he is far from being a naive realist; what makes his writing so exciting to me is the way in which it manifests both an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythic and archetypal significance of life-events.

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130

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811210324

ISBN 13

9780811210324

Immigrants in Our Own Land & Selected Early Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Immigrants in Our Own Land & Selected Early Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

Immigrants in Our Own Land & Selected Early Poems is a new, expanded edition of Jimmy Santiago Baca's best-selling first book of poetry (originally published by Louisiana State University Press in 1979). A number of poems from early, now unavailable chapbooks have also been included so that the reader can at last have an overview of Baca's remarkable literary development. The voice of Immigrants will be familiar to readers of the widely praised Martín & Meditations on the South Valley and Black Mesa Poems (New Directions, 1987 and 1989), but the territory may not be. Most of the poems in this collection were written while the author was in prison, where he taught himself to read and write. All the poems are concerned with the incarcerated or the disenfranchised; they all communicate the sting from the backhand of the American promise. As Denise Levertov has noted, Baca "is far from being a naive realist," but of poverty and prejudice, of material that is truly raw, he "writes in unconcealed passion.

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102

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811211452

ISBN 13

9780811211451

Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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116

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

081121575X

ISBN 13

9780811215756

Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Spring Poems Along the Rio Grande

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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100

Publisher

New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811216853

ISBN 13

9780811216852

Selected Poems/Poemas Selectos

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Selected Poems/Poemas Selectos

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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277

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New Directions Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0811223337

ISBN 13

9780811223331

The Importance of a Piece of Paper

Stories

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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The Importance of a Piece of Paper

Stories

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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197

Publisher

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1555848915

ISBN 13

9781555848910

When I Walk Through That Door, I Am

An Immigrant Mother's Quest

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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When I Walk Through That Door, I Am

An Immigrant Mother's Quest

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Beacon Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807059471

ISBN 13

9780807059470

No Enemies

Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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No Enemies

Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

Acclaimed poet Jimmy Santiago Baca knows something is wrong with contemporary society. He’s afraid “that the whole network / that connects us / and society together / is going to collapse / that our lives / will be dependent on tiny / little blue wires / that can’t shake my hand / or share my joy, / that won’t challenge the police / to stop beating a brown man / or can’t do even something as small / and gentle as smile.” In this collection of new poems, Baca expresses his sense of responsibility to use his gift for the greater good. “If not me, then who / speaks to money, power, privilege / if not / an ordinary man / then who?” He chastises those who use their connections to benefit themselves at the expense of the impoverished, imprisoned and undocumented. Frequently, he takes aim at poets and politicians who put their lucrative positions ahead of their constituents: “Governor, if you choose a career / where you have to ignore the truth / and pillage the unfortunate, at least / outlaw automatic weapons.” While many of these poems are stinging rebukes against the wealthy and powerful and their disregard for children living in poverty and the environment, others are beautiful odes to his indigenous roots. There are buffalo with their gentle hearts, sacred places where he prays to his ancestors and the plants growing on steep mountainsides that give “me courage to keep clinging to hope and to learn / life’s most important lesson / practice how to lean in life so as not to fall.” Baca writes urgently about the most important themes of our generation, including education, justice, the environment and even the coronavirus. Ironically, he notes, “the enemy didn’t come at us crossing borders, / swinging machetes and machine guns.” No, nature herself has come to clean house, to give “Mother Earth a reprieve from our greed.”

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Page Count

151

Publisher

Arte Publico Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1518506712

ISBN 13

9781518506710

C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans

Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans

Poems

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Page Count

164

Publisher

Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802198554

ISBN 13

9780802198556

The Esai Poems

Breaking Bread with the Darkness I

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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The Esai Poems

Breaking Bread with the Darkness I

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Page Count

114

Publisher

Restless Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0989983226

ISBN 13

9780989983228

Feeding the Roots of Self-Expression and Freedom

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca,Kym Sheehan,Denise VanBriggle

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Feeding the Roots of Self-Expression and Freedom

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca,Kym Sheehan,Denise VanBriggle

This curriculum-based collection of lesson plans is designed to build student confidence for articulating their unique ideas and sensibilities about the world through literary expression. For this book, Jimmy Santiago Baca, one of the foremost poets in America today, collaborates with two National Writing Project Fellows and literacy professionals, Kym Sheehan and Denise VanBriggle. Together they present a teaching tool that uses poems from Baca’s incarceration as a young man, along with curricular activities and probing questions crafted to help students heal through writing. Each exercise reinforces the theme that a strong grasp of self-esteem borne from unique expression lends itself to the student enjoying day-to-day life at the highest creative and fulfilling level. Book Features: Draws on the extraordinary life and career of Jimmy Santiago Baca, who came to write poetry in prison and now has 28 works in print, ranging from a feature movie Blood In Blood Out to his bestselling memoir A Place to Stand. Based on the authors’ combined experience of facilitating hundreds of writing workshops. Offers field-tested recommendations to help educators inspire and fortify students suffering from doubt or damaged self-esteem. Includes detailed descriptions, exercises, and sample poetry to assist teachers and students in the writing process.

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Page Count

145

Publisher

Teachers College Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807759554

ISBN 13

9780807759554

The Lucia Poems

Breaking Bread with the Darkness II

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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The Lucia Poems

Breaking Bread with the Darkness II

By: Jimmy Santiago Baca

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Page Count

137

Publisher

Restless Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0989983234

ISBN 13

9780989983235

Book's by Jimmy Santiago Baca

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