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Critics reveiw:
Although Jimmy's earleir work was some times considerd Unrefined and without theme, critics quickly
considered him as a fresh new chicano voice from the southwest. Marion Taylor in her review of Immigrants in our own land
say's "What these poems discover is a center of freedom and humaneness beyond the bleak realities; they are in their way
a hymn and a celebration of the human spirit in extreme situations."
As Jimmy Baca re-adjusted to life as a free man his work to re-adjusted and began to steer away from his
prison experiences into more poetry about life.
Scott Slovic says in his review of Black Meso Poems "To read Jimmy Santiago
Baca's poetry is to tramp across the uneven terrain of human experience, sometimes lulled
by the everydayness of work or relationships, and then dazzled by a flood of emotion or vibrant observation."
Janet St. john state in her review of Spring Poem Along the Rio Grande " The Rio Grande, as both
setting and symbol of freedom and life, meanders through the poems, evoking a natural progression of time and the natural
ebb and flow of feelings such as love, hope, and connection."
Awards: 2006- Cornelius P. Turner GED Award
2001-The
International Prize for A Place to Stand
2001-Barnes and Noble Discover
Author for A Place to Stand
1997- Humanitarian Award, Albuquerque
1996, 97- Champion Poetry Bout, Taos,
NM
1995-The Endowed Hulbert Chair, Colorado College
1993- Southwest Book Award
1990-The International
Hispanic Heritage Award
1990- Berkeley Regents Chair, University of California - Berkeley
1989-The Wallace
Stevens Endowed Chair, Yale
1989-The American Book Award for Poetry
1988-The Pushcart Prize
1987-The
Vogelstein Foundation Award
1986-National Endowments Arts Literary Fellowship
Jimmy Santiago Baca's Environment:
Jimmy Baca grew up
in the southwest during the 1950s and 1960s. Racial discrimination was very prevalent at this time and is apparent in his
work. It was not until the late 1960s that the Chicano civil rights movement really took effect and even still prejudice is
very apparent. Many minorities especially those of Hispanic descent were vastly underprivileged in economic, legal and social
situations. Jimmy Santiago Baca claim’s he was falsely charged for the possession of controlled substances that resulted
in his prison sentence. It is very obvious that his environment of racial prejudice is directly correlated with his work;
you can see this correlation in many of his poems, often expressing disdain and resentment to his oppressors (the white authority).
The Common Themes in Jimmy Santiago Baca's work:
Much of Jimmy Baca’s early work expresses
his disdain for authority and the injustices they had placed on him. This theme is commonly called prison Poetry, with such
poems as: The Day Brushes the Curtain Aside, Who Understands Me But Me and Oppression. These poems express the struggle he
endured while imprisoned (spending much of his sentence in solitary confinement) often using words like guard, wall, pain
and cage as dark imagery for poetry. Many of the poems from his first book Immigrants in our own land follow the theme
of Prison poetry. While his later work expresses a sense of over-coming, accomplishment and Chicano pride, often are using
natural scenery to blend in with a message. This creates a feeling of symbiotic relationship between Jimmy Baca’s life
and his southwestern surroundings. These can be seen in his newer books Heeling
Earthquakes and Black Mesa Poems with such poems as choices and green Chile.
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