Why is Jimmy Santiago Baca important?

Why is Jimmy Santiago Baca important?

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.

When did Jimmy Santiago Baca learn to read?

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 years in prison, four of them in isolation. During this time, Baca taught himself to read and write, and he began to compose poetry.

What poetry is Jimmy Santiago Baca known for?

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).

Does Jimmy Santiago Baca have children?

Santiago Baca lives in Albuquerque with his wife and two teenagers. He has two older children as well. He has written 31 books of poems, essays and stories. He wrote the popular 1993 screenplay for the movie Blood In Blood Out aka Bound By Honor.

What is the main idea of coming into language?

Coming into Language is a personal story of a man who has faced hardships all his life, but along the way finds life and meaning in one thing: writing. Within his personal account and rhetoric, it is evident that as the importance of writing evolves for him, so do the meanings that accompany his experiences.

Where is Jimmy Santiago Baca from?

Jimmy Santiago Baca