In the title poem, Jimmy Santiago Baca says: "To write the story of my soul / I trace the silence and stone / of Black Mesa." This collection of poems carries the reader into the mountains and valleys of northern New Mexico, and to the barrio where the poet and his family live. They are poems full of incident and experience, of the "twenty-eight shotgun pellets" that remain in "my thighs, belly, and groin" from an incident with Felipe in 1988 ("From Violence to Peace"), and the slaughter of a sheep to the tattoo of wild drums ("Matanza to Welcome Spring"), and the tragic story of "El Sapo," the Frog King.
Baca’s characters live close to the land, close to the mountains, and sometimes outside the law ("Tomas Lucero"). These poems witness to the violence and despair of barrio life, but also to its energy and joy. Baca’s hope continues "to evolve with the universe / side by side with its creative catastrophe."
Born in New Mexico, poet Jimmy Santiago Baca recounts his long saga of imprisonment, beginning in childhood and stretching into adulthood. Throughout this beautifully written memoir, Baca describes his experiences in and outside of prison, and how he moved from being a victim of the system to a survivor through the written word.
This passionate poem celebrates the home birth of the writer's son Gabriel. Baca describes the scene in sensuously rolling lines and robust language--Beatrice in the tub, Beatrice with her leg propped on the toilet, pushing, pushing: "Through vines of hair I peer, / between her spread legs, where blinding light / streams through." Gabriel appears! "Gabriel slips from her trembling loins, / filmy with juice, / thick rivulets of blood / run down our hands, arms, waists . . . " [79 lines]
