Jimmy Santiago Baca, From Prison To Poetry

When Jimmy Santiago Baca was 20, he was convicted of drug charges and sentenced to prison. He was illiterate when he arrived at the Arizona State Prison. When he got out five years later, he was well on his way to becoming one of America’s most celebrated poets.

Baca writes about oppression, love and migration, and his poems range from just a few lines to many pages.

A new anthology of his work called Singing at the Gates tells the story of his life in poetry, from prison to renown. The anthology begins with a series of letters Baca wrote from prison to a woman named Mariposa. The letters are themselves poems, and are some of the first things he ever committed to paper as he learned to read and write.

Jimmy Santiago Baca spoke with NPR’s Arun Rath about his long career. You can hear Baca read from two of his longer poems, Singing at the Gates and Rita Falling from the Sky,

To read the full story and to listen to the poems please follow this link: http://www.npr.org/2014/01/04/259442690/jimmy-santiago-baca-from-prison-to-poetry

Latest articles