A Place to Stand: The Making of a Poet

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Overview

Jimmy Santiago Baca's harrowing, brilliant memoir of his life before, during, and immediately after the years he spent in a maximum-security prison garnered tremendous critical acclaim and went on to win the prestigious 2001 International Prize. Long considered one of the best poets in America today, Baca was illiterate at the age of twenty-one and facing five to ten years behind bars for selling drugs. A Place to Stand is the remarkable tale of how he emerged after his years in the penitentiary — much of it spent in isolation — with the ability to read and a passion for writing poetry. A vivid portrait of life inside a maximum-security prison and an affirmation of one man's spirit in overcoming the most brutal adversity, A Place to Stand "stands as proof there is always hope in even the most desperate lives" — (Fort Worth Morning Star-Telegram). "A Place to Stand is a hell of a book, quite literally. You won't soon forget it." — Luis Urrea, The San Diego Union-Tribune "This book will have a permanent place in American letters." — Jim Harrison

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802139085
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	06/10/2002
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	157,095
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
It is said that the boy is father to the man, but in the case of Jimmy Santiago Baca, a childhood marked by abandonment, violence, and drugs remarkably produced one of our generation's most acclaimed poets. Now, the New Mexico native makes his first foray into the realm of narrative nonfiction in this graphic and affecting memoir that recalls a life of constant tragedy. He begins with a sad trip, at the age of five, to visit his alcoholic father in jail. Shortly thereafter, his mother abandons her children, and Jimmy is relegated first to an orphanage, then to a detention center. And as Baca enters adulthood, he finds himself reverting again and again to drug dealing and a life on the run -- the only life he has ever known.

Landing in a maximum-security prison in Arizona, Baca both witnesses and engages in horrific acts of violence. But at the same time, he miraculously discovers a deep attachment to poetry that becomes his saving grace. Repeatedly locked away in isolation, Baca slowly begins to make a kind of poetic sense of his own life and, by the time of his prison release, he is studying the works of Anne Sexton, Ezra Pound, Pablo Neruda, and William Carlos Williams, as well as writing his own increasingly mature and powerful verses. Ultimately, Baca is able to look back on his life and family with forgiveness. His increasing awareness that his life isn't the one he would have chosen, but is the one that made him who he is, is a moving lesson for us all. (Summer 2001 Selection)

bn.com

Poet Baca's (Black Mesa Poems) memoir reveals a complex early life. Alternately loved and abandoned by his alcoholic father and his mother, nurtured by grandparents but sent to an orphanage when his grandfather died, Baca was illiterate at 21 and unable to support himself legitimately. Beyond self-pity, however, he acknowledges his own as well as others' responsibility for his path to prison. Arrested for dealing drugs but falsely accused of shooting an FBI agent, Baca was betrayed by friends, attorneys, and the legal system. His unflinching account of his incarceration, with its brutality and occasional benevolence, reveals the paradox of prison life. Ironically, his time in solitary confinement redeemed him, prompting lifesaving memories of his rural New Mexico childhood, which ignited his ability to use language to elevate himself above his immediate surroundings. The rustic imagery is beautiful, but beautiful, too, is the sun's path down the dark prison corridor. Baca, who has temerity and talent, was ultimately released, but his narrative begs the question: How many incarcerated individuals languish in U.S. prisons, victims of a system that history may someday compare to a medieval dungeon? Worth reading from both a literary and a social perspective, this book is recommended for all public and academic libraries. Nedra C. Evers, Sacramento P.L., CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A mercifully brief memoir of the Pushcart Prize- and American Book Award-winning Hispanic poet's criminal past, and his agonizingly slow discovery of the redemptive power of writing while serving a prison term. Born in New Mexico as the third child of an alcoholic father and philandering mother, Baca (Black Mesa Poems) was handed off at seven to his grandparents when his father disappeared and his mother ran off with another man-only to find himself in an orphanage when his grandfather died shortly thereafter. Early efforts at schooling failed, and the marginally literate Baca ran away and experimented with criminal behavior. Without any strong role models, fruitful employment, or defenses against anti-Hispanic bigotry, Baca, unusually strong for his youth, developed a vicious proficiency at streetfighting and deliberately resisted attempts by occasional benefactors to set him straight. When he discovered that his first lover was unfaithful to him, Baca drifted to California, where he was fired from his job as an unlicensed plumber after he refused the sexual advances of a housewife. In Arizona, a life as a drug dealer soon landed him a five-year sentence in Florence State Prison-an overcrowded, maximum-security facility where Baca turned to books as an escape and began writing angry, bitterly ironic poetry to purge himself of emotional turmoil. "I am Healing Earthquakes," he writes in one of his early poems, "a man awakening to the day with a place to stand / And ground to defend." After he was released, his attempts at reaching a reconciliation with surviving family members ended in horror when a brother died from alcoholism and his stepfather murdered his mother andthen killed himself. Baca finally married, clinging to the love of his wife and his poetry "to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless, of which I am one." A brutally unflinching look back at a dead-end youth that became a crucible for vivid and vital art. Author tour

Kirkus Reviews