Jimmy Santiago Baca

Selected Poems

For two years The Sun was a lighthouse that guided me through rough, dark waters: Every line of mine that Sy [Safransky] published penetrated a little more of the fog called imprisonment. Every poem revealed my wrecked spirit dashed against the reef. Not only had Sy loved them, but Sun readers sent letters of appreciation, which Sy printed in the magazine. I’d never been complimented for anything, much less a literary contribution. My life had some hope in it now.

Selected Poems

A Place To Stand

It was no surprise that the judge had given me the harshest sentence allowed by law. The nuns had always said I was a bad boy, and here was the judge making the same condemnation. I was sure I was convicted mostly because of who I was, expunged from a society that didn’t want people like me in it.

Selected Poems

Selected Poems

Tales From Inside

As Manny walked he was overwhelmed by the delicate, inviolable crown of the stars. Freedom was a feather brushed and swept across the heavens, now sweeping his tongue, his nostrils, his lungs. There was nothing more he needed. 

To Ram Dass

Selected Poems

Joe

Tales From Inside

Down here was only blankness — as if someone had taken the eyes and turned them around, so only the whites were showing, and that whiteness was what reflected down here to the mind’s screen.