Singing at the Gates: Selected Poems
Jimmy Santiago Baca
(Author)
Description
Award-winning writer Jimmy Santiago Baca is acclaimed for his talent in weaving personal and political threads to create pertinent and poignant narratives. He addresses universal issues with vigor and passion as well as emotional grace and vivid sensory detail, establishing him as a vital voice in American poetry. Singing at the Gates is a collection of Baca's work that stretches back over four decades. These poems revitalize the national dialogue: raging against war and imprisonment, fighting for prison reform, celebrating family and the bonds of friendship, heightening appreciation for and consciousness of the environment. A career-spanning selection, it includes his early work as a budding poet--written during his years in the penitentiary, where he taught himself to read and write--in addition to poems from his first chapbook and recent pieces meditating on the significance of breaking through adversity and oppression. From outraged to serene, playful to meditative, Baca's voice is robust, searing, sensuous, and tender. This arresting collection displays the breadth and depth of Baca's poetic power--with irreverent charm and disarming freedom of mind and soul. The vital pulse of love abiding in these poems will affirm and reaffirm, for both longtime and newfound readers, his devotion to truth and beauty.Product Details
Price
$18.00
$16.74
Publisher
Grove Press
Publish Date
November 17, 2015
Pages
288
Dimensions
5.4 X 8.2 X 0.9 inches | 0.65 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780802122933
BISAC Categories:
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About the Author
Jimmy Santiago Baca was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1952. His parents abandoned him at the age of two, and he lived with his grandmother for several years before being placed in an orphanage. A runaway at age thirteen, Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison at the age of twenty-one for drug offenses. It was in prison that he learned to read and write and began to compose poetry. His book Martín & Meditations on the South Valley, a pair of long narrative poems, won an American Book Award in 1988. In addition to his poetry collections and stories, Baca wrote the screenplay for the movie Bound by Honor, which was released by Hollywood Pictures in 1993.