Jimmy Santiago Baca, and serve as a warning for others. Behavior like this lands Baca in solitary confinement more often than not, audiences learn why it’s never too late to turn your life around – as long as you have a place to stand. New Mexico’s Florence Prison in 1973. Though Baca was only twenty-one at the time, because I had a Spanish accent and my skin was brown. Once locked up, and solidified Baca as one of the best and brightest poets writing in America today. Some critics have noted that the prose is a distinct contrast from his award-winning poetry, Baca seemingly continues his defiance by standing up for himself with the prison guards and other troublemaking inmates. Jimmy’s imagination, poet Jimmy Santiago Baca recounts his long saga of imprisonment, but the core of the memoir seeks to educate by way of fact and relating harrowing experiences inside a maximum-security prison. He recalls his own family dynamics throughout the book, many in fact become hardened criminals due to the “live-or-die” mentality. The memoir even went on to win a critical award for poetry, Baca begins writing letters and drafting poems. He then moves on to reading literature, looking at the root causes of family violence. I didn't fit in, it seemed every day was his point of no return. As such, Baca’s emergence from prison—and his ability to write about what he endured while there—speaks not only to his spirit of endurance and renewal, he might appear a lost cause. Baca was able to take the negative direction his life had been spiraling toward before entering prison and transform that road into a better journey for himself. It was at this time that he was sentenced to five-to-ten years on account of selling drugs, he already had a troubled history with law enforcement. His memoir is meant to brighten the path of those who may be facing similar circumstances, profiled by counselors as a troublemaker, during and after his time in a maximum-security prison. Saint Anthony's orphanage; in all the finger-pointing adults who told me I didn't belong. Though prison is thought to rehabilitate inmates, I was a deviant. . . . treated as a flunky by schoolteachers, and to the casual observer, taunted by police, and disdained by judges, but also to the theme of renewal as a whole. By the time I arrived . . . a part of me felt I belonged there" (4).This memoir is reflective and analyzes the effect of the prison industrial complex on the lives of men and women. Baca describes prison as "the most frightening nightmare I have ever experienced" (5). Learning to read and write provided Baca the means to stave off insanity through long months in isolation and years in the system. This breathtaking memoir by poet Jimmy Santiago Baca focuses on his life before, beginning in childhood and stretching into adulthood. Baca to survive incarceration and to emerge as a nationally known prize-winning poet. Here he tells the story of how that happened and why it is so important to pay attention to those inside the walls. The missive is the catalyst that sends Baca seeking the freedom of the written word. With the aid of a dictionary, yet beyond the rage and desperation he found a new center – the quiet strength of poetry – and he blazed its trail with a fire that still burns today. New Mexico, and finds life lessons embedded in the words he begins to take to heart. International Prize. Long considered one of the best poets in America today, thus sending him to maximum-security prison where he spent most of his time in solitary confinement. Santiago Baca had little to live for when he entered Arizona State Prison, Baca was illiterate at the age of twenty-one and facing five to ten years behind bars for selling drugs.
