Jimmy Santiago Baca
Jimmy Santiago Baca Poems
I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat,
when winter comes to cover you,
...
They turn the water off, so I live without water,
they build walls higher, so I live without treetops,
they paint the windows black, so I live without sunshine,
they lock my cage, so I live without going anywhere,
...
Behind the smooth texture
Of my eyes, way inside me,
A part of me has died:
I move my bloody fingernails
...
I prefer red chile over my eggs
and potatoes for breakfast.
Red chile ristras decorate my door,
dry on my roof, and hang from eaves.
...
No matter how serene things
may be in my life,
how well things are going,
my body and soul
...
Everybody to sleep the guard symbolizes
on his late night tour of the tombs.
When he leaves, after counting still bodies
wrapped in white sheets, when he goes,
...
Is a question of strength,
of unshed tears,
of being trampled under,
and always, always,
...
Portate bien,
behave yourself you always said to me.
I behaved myself
when others were warm in winter
...
It was a time when they were afraid of him.
My father, a bare man, a gypsy, a horse
with broken knees no one would shoot.
Then again, he was like the orange tree,
...
An acquaintance at Los Alamos Labs
who engineers weapons
black x’d a mark where I live
on his office map.
...
Padilla unloads mangy herd of Mexican
cattle in the field.
Meaner, horns long and sharp
for bloody battle, lean from a diet
...
Is cut close, blades and bones,
And the stench of sewers is everywhere,
Blood-sloshed floors,
And guards count the dead
...
to a dark stage.
I lie there awake in my prison bunk,
in the eye-catching silence
of prison night.
...
My hands the Hook thunder hangs its hat on,
My breast the Arroyo storms fill with water,
My brow the Horizon sunrise fills,
My heart the Dawn weaving blue threads of day,
...
It is windy today. A wall of wind crashes against,
windows clunk against, iron frames
as wind swings past broken glass
and seethes, like a frightened cat
...
Twenty-eight shotgun pellets
crater my thighs, belly and groin.
I gently thumb each burnt bead,
fingering scabbed stubs with ointment.
...
Winter
throws his great white shield
on the ground,
breaking thin arms of twisting branches,
...
Listening to jazz now, I'm happy
sun shining outside like it was my lifetime achievement award.
...
Jimmy Santiago Baca Biography
Jimmy Santiago Baca is an American Poet and writer. Life and Career Jimmy Santiago Baca was born in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, in 1952. Abandoned by his parents at the age of two, he lived with one of his grandmothers for several years before being placed in an orphanage. He wound up living on the streets, and at the age of twenty-one he was convicted on charges of drug possession and incarcerated. He served six and a half years in prison, three of them in isolation, and having expressed a desire to go to school (the guards considered this dangerous), he was for a time put in the same area of the prison with the inmates on death row before he was released. During this time, Baca taught himself to read and write, and he began to compose poetry. He sold these poems to fellow inmates in exchange for cigarettes. A fellow inmate convinced him to submit some of his poems to the magazine Mother Jones, then edited by Denise Levertov. Levertov printed Baca's poems and began corresponding with him, eventually finding a publisher for his first book. Immigrants in Our Own Land, Baca's first major collection, was highly praised. In 1987, his semi-autobiographical minor epic in verse, Martin and Meditations on the South Valley, received the American Book Award for poetry, bringing Baca international acclaim and, in 1989, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature. A self-styled "poet of the people," Baca conducts writing workshops with children and adults at countless elementary, junior high and high schools, colleges, universities, reservations, barrio community centers, white ghettos, housing projects, correctional facilities and prisons from coast to coast. In 2004 Baca started a non-profit organization, Cedar Tree, Inc., that supports these workshops through charitable donations. As well as writing workshops, Cedar Tree has produced two documentary films Clamor en Chino and Moving the River Back Home. The organization employs ex-offenders as interns. Published Works Baca's poetry collections include C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans: Dream Boy's Story (Grove Press, 2002), Healing Earthquakes (2001), Set This 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 to Stand (2001), chronicles his troubled youth and the five-year jail-stint that brought about his personal transformation. Baca is also the author a collection of stories and essays, Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio (1992); a play, Los tres hijos de Julia (1991); a screenplay, Bound by Honor, which was released by Hollywood Pictures as Blood In Blood Out in 1993; he also published at the end of 1993 Second Chances; Baca is also the author of a memoir, A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet (2002). Baca's most recent novel is A Glass of Water (2009))
The Best Poem Of Jimmy Santiago Baca
I Am Offering This Poem
I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat,
when winter comes to cover you,
or like a pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,
I love you,
I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in the winter,
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,
I love you,
Keep it, treasure it as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature;
and in the corner of your drawer,
tucked away like a cabin or a hogan
in dense trees, come knocking,
and I will answer, give you directions,
and let you warm yourself by this fire,
rest by this fire, and make you feel safe,
I love you,
It's all I have to give,
and it's all anyone needs to live,
and to go on living inside,
when the world outside
no longer cares if you live or die;
remember,
I love you.
Jimmy Santiago Baca Comments
I am a poetry student at NMHU and saw Jimmy Santiago Baca reach out to his community with all his heart. Although I am white and a transplant to the state of NM, I saw that the local young men really were toughed as was a young black guy from California. NM and all other states should have more inspirational artists like Jimmy coming to tell stories and read aloud to a community to which they relate to and we wouldn't have so much crime, misunderstanding and the damnation of the few good men who still exist amongst an all- too- often cruel world. Even as I could not relate to the culture since I didn't grow up here, Baca was an inspiration and example that people have the control to become who they want to be even when their past circumstances have all but withered their desire to live! Thanks Jimmy Santiago Baca for being an inspiration for a better life in NM and for the young people who don't have the comforts of life handed to them on a silver platter! !
*psssssst* (whispers) Hey. Who is Jimmy Santiago Baca and what does he do?
I think xman is completely wrong in saying that. Not based on the content that he posted, no. This is based on xman himself. You are always wrong in what you say and all your base are belong to me. Make your time. kfffffffffffffffff
This poem is too unfreakingbelievably awesome to have some stupid english essay written about it. My name is Kyle. -Kyle
which book contains the gate poems and where could I buy it?
Dear Mr. Baca, I heard your poem, Sixteen, read on Boston Public Radio yesterday and was very moved by it. In two weeks, I am the speaker at the Sakonnet Peace Alliance, a group which meets every Sunday for a Peace Vigil I would be honored to read your poem and am hoping you might send me a copy of it. Thank you, Debby King, Westport, MA
Dear Mr Baca My name is Jeff Willoughby and I am in 7th grade. I had to recite a poet. I picked you because your poems are so beautifully written. I am such a huge fan. I recited " I Am Offering This Poem" That is my favorite poem. I just love that poem Mr Baca you email me it would be an honor me [email protected]
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6/23/2025 8:18:41 AM # 1.0.0
Two more questions: 1) What's a poem? b) I'm so cool.