Martín & Meditations on the South Valley by Jimmy Santiago Baca

A series of small poems divided among five books, it explores the history of love in the poet's personal relationships: in (and not in) his childhood community ('as I am born again in the suffering of my people') his mother ('I wanted to suckle them again and crawl up inside her/ again/ and always be innocent') and brother ('your dying/ made a rush of silver knives/ explode through my soul') women taken as lovers (not fond recollections), and the first woman with whom he found love. (Forecasts, May 28), World Heavyweight Poetry Bout champ Baca's new book-length work is a sprawling journal of epic proportions. In 2005 he created Cedar Tree, Inc., a nonprofit foundation dedicated to helping others improve their lives through education.Building on the achievement of the epic poem Martin & Meditations on the South ValleyĪnd his memoirs Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet in the BarrioĪnd the forthcoming A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet

Turner Award, a national award that annually recognizes one GED graduate who has made outstanding contributions to society in education, justice, health, public service, and social welfare.ĭevoting his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship, Baca has conducted hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities. Now an accomplished and celebrated author, Baca is the recipient of many honors including the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the Hispanic Heritage Award, and for his memoir, A Place to Stand, he received the prestigious International Prize. He miraculously discovers a deep attachment to poetry that becomes his saving grace.

After years of hellish suffering on administrative segregation and in isolation, he emerges from prison a voracious reader and a skilled, self-taught writer.

In early adulthood he reverted again and again to a life of crime, eventually being sentenced to five years in a maximum-security prison. As an abandoned child and a runaway Jimmy Santiago Baca’s childhood was spent on the margins of society.

Martín & Meditations on the South Valley by Jimmy Santiago Baca