Synopsis
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.
Review
Praise for "A Glass of Water"
"Jimmy Santiago Baca's poems read like novels, and his novels read like poems. . . . [He] fills his prose with evocative, naturalistic details, [and] his poetry's beating heart . . . weaves stories of Chicano loss and redemption, often through a reconnection to Earth's natural elements." --"Austin Chronicle"
"The sheer passion that drives Baca's [work] is undeniable." --"Publishers Weekly"
"Baca manages to put a face on desperation . . . also passion, joy, love of family, adventure, love, longing, and accomplishment. The imagery is striking, the prose lyrical." --"Albuquerque Journal"
Praise for "The Importance of a Piece of Paper"
"Raw and ambitious, notable for addressing important issues . . . and depicting marginalized communities and individuals who struggle to retain meaning and purpose in a harsh, unjust world." --"San Francisco Chronicle"
"Baca's prose remains as light-saturated and unsentimental as the rugged terrain--both geographical and human--that "The Importance of a Piece of Paper" charts with cartographical precision." --"Los Angeles Times"
"[Baca] continues to mine his experience, exploring conflicts between the rich traditions of Chicano culture and a modern world impatient with them. . . . Striking." --"Entertainment Weekly"
"Paints a picture of Chicano life that is at once cruel and sweetly redemptive. . . . Baca has the ability to convey much in few words, and his precise use of detail delivers small, startling truths." --"Publishers Weekly"
Praise for "A Place to Stand"
"Elegant and gripping . . . The velocity of [Baca's] transformation through literature is breathtaking." --"Los Angeles Times"
"A wild ride through poverty and alcoholism, abandonment, and orphanage scenes from Dickens . . . "A Place to Stand" is a hell of a book, quite literally. You won't soon forget it." --"The San Diego Union-Tribune"
"An astonishing narrative
Praise for Jimmy Santiago Baca:
"A poet in control of his craft . . . whose voice, brutal yet tender, is unique in America . . . one worth paying attention to." --"The Nation"
"[Baca] writes with unconcealed passion . . . but he is far from being a naive realist; what makes his writing so exciting to me is the way it manifests both an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythic and archetypal significance of life-events." --Denise Levertov
Praise for "Singing at the Gates"
"What an achingly beautiful collection this is. So split open, so raw, honest, vulnerable, real. Spanning Baca's life in poetry, you feel the enormity of his heart and intelligence." --Natalie Goldberg, "Writing Down the Bones" and "The True Secret of Writing"
"If you're Mexican in the United States today, you are outraged by how your people are treated. If you're a poet, you use your words to denounce that outrage. And if you're Jimmy Santiago Baca, those words become raw, intimate, transcendent poems, meant not only for your people but for the nation as a whole. America, after all, is still an inclusive dream worth fighting for. Racism will eventually be brought to its feet, thanks in part to poetry." --Ilan Stavans, general editor of "The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature"
Praise for Jimmy Santiago Baca:
"A poet in control of his craft . . . whose voice, brutal yet tender, is unique in America . . . one worth paying attention to." --"The Nation"
"[Baca] writes with unconcealed passion . . . but he is far from being a naive realist; what makes his writing so exciting to me is the way it manifests both an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythic and archetypal significance of life-events." --Denise Levertov
"[A] fiery retrospective collection. . . . Baca's poems are warm and furious, feathered and drumming, plowed and tattooed, righteous and prayerful. His is a clarion and necessary voice, and this standout volume belongs in every library." --Booklist
"This is rust-under-your-fingernails, dust-in-your-eyes, blood-in-your-mouth poetry. This is the kind of poetry that reflects the maddening of souls and chronicles a yearning for justice." --American Way
"Jimmy Santiago Baca is one of New Mexico's treasures . . . For anyone who's ever had their life changed through art or words, [he] is a poet that speaks your language." --Weekly Alibi
"What an achingly beautiful collection this is. So split open, so raw, honest, vulnerable, real. Spanning Baca's life in poetry, you feel the enormity of his heart and intelligence." --Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones and The True Secret of Writing
"If you're Mexican in the United States today, you are outraged by how your people are treated. If you're a poet, you use your words to denounce that outrage. And if you're Jimmy Santiago Baca, those words become raw, intimate, transcendent poems, meant not only for your people but for the nation as a whole. America, after all, is still an inclusive dream worth fighting for. Racism will eventually be brought to its feet, thanks in part to poetry." --Ilan Stavans, general editor of The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature
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