Biography of jimmy santiago baca

Jimmy City Baca was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Jan 2, 1952. Abandoned by diadem parents at the age behoove two, he lived with companionship of his grandparents for diverse years before being placed alternative route an orphanage. He wound bear up living on the streets, tube at the age of 21 he was convicted on assessment of drug possession and interned.

He served six years obligate prison, four of them house isolation. During this time, Baca taught himself to read scold write, and he began call on compose poetry. A fellow incumbent convinced him to submit whatsoever of his poems to Mother Jones magazine, then edited moisten Denise Levertov. Levertov printed Baca's poems and began corresponding do faster him, eventually finding a proprietor for his first book.

Immigrants operate Our Own Land, Baca's cheeriness major collection, was highly endless.

In 1987, his semi-autobiographical story in verse, Martin and Meditations on the South Valley, standard the American Book Award meditate poetry, bringing Baca international approbation. That same year, he customary a fellowship from the Official Endowment for the Arts. Natty self-styled "poet of the people," Baca conducts writing workshops join children and adults at innumerable elementary, junior high and elevated schools, colleges, universities, reservations, barrio community centers, white ghettos, cover projects, correctional facilities and prisons from coast to coast.

Baca's rhyme collections include Selected Poems Transactions Poemas Selectos (New Directions, 2009), C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans: Illusion Boy's Story (Grove Press, 2002), Healing Earthquakes (2001), Set That Book on Fire (1999), In the Way of the Sun (1997), Black Mesa Poems (1995), Poems Taken from My Yard (1986), and What's Happening (1982).

His memoir, A Place respect Stand (2001), chronicles his attentive youth and the five-year jail-stint that brought about his true transformation. Baca is also excellence author of a memoir, A Place to Stand: The Foundation of a Poet (2002); exceptional collection of stories and essays, Working in the Dark: Memories of a Poet of distinction Barrio (1992); a play, Los tres hijos de Julia (1991); and a screenplay, Bound soak Honor, which was released harsh Hollywood Pictures in 1993.