Jimmy Santiago Baca
Jimmy Santiago Baca is an award-winning American poet and writer of Chicano descent.
While serving a five-year sentence in a maximum security prison, he learned to read and began to turn his life around, eventually emerging as a prolific artist of the spoken and written word.
He is a winner of the prestigious International Award for his memoir, A Place to Stand, the story of which is now also a documentary by the same title.
Poetry by Jimmy Santiago Baca
that there is a great power within us, that when used in purity,
unselfishness and immaculate thought,
cures, heals and causes miracles
and now assists me in my journey–
And the convicts themselves, at the mummy’s
feet, blood-splattered leather, at this one’s feet,
they become cobras sucking life out of their brothers,
they fight for rings and money and drugs,
in this pit of pain their teeth bare fangs,
to fight for what morsels they can. . . .