Poet, writer and screenwriter Jimmy Santiago Baca has published more than 30 books, and was awarded the Pushcart Prize, the American Book Award, the National Poetry Award, two Southwest Book Awards, and the International Hispanic Heritage Award. But he was a runaway at age 13, and at age 21 was sentenced to five years in prison. While he was in prison he taught himself to read, and began to write poetry. He said that “…for the first time, the child in me who had witnessed and endured unspeakable terrors cried out not just in impotent despair, but with the power of language. Suddenly, through language, through writing, my grief and joy could be shared with anyone who would listen….Through language I was free.”
In addition to his writing, he works with gang members, convicts, and illiterate adults, facilitates writing workshops, and visits prisons, youth offender facilities, and inner-city schools. The University of New Mexico awarded him an honorary PhD for his work teaching thousands of adults and kids to read and write. Here is one of his poems, “Who Understands Me But Me.”
Who Understands Me But Me
They turn the water off, so I live without water,
they build walls higher, so I live without treetops,
they paint the windows black, so I live without sunshine,
they lock my cage, so I live without going anywhere,
they take each last tear I have, I live without tears,
they take my heart and rip it open, I live without heart,
they take my life and crush it, so I live without a future,
they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no friends,
they stop up each hope, so I have no passage out of hell,
they give me pain, so I live with pain,
they give me hate, so I live with my hate,
they have changed me, and I am not the same man,
they give me no shower, so I live with my smell,
they separate me from my brothers, so I live without brothers,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?
who understands me when I say I have found other freedoms?
I cannot fly or make something appear in my hand,
I cannot make the heavens open or the earth tremble,
I can live with myself, and I am amazed at myself, my love,
my beauty,
I am taken by my failures, astounded by my fears,
I am stubborn and childish,
in the midst of this wreckage of life they incurred,
I practice being myself,
and I have found parts of myself never dreamed of by me,
they were goaded out from under rocks in my heart
when the walls were built higher,
when the water was turned off and the windows painted black.
I followed these signs
like an old tracker and followed the tracks deep into myself,
followed the blood-spotted path,
deeper into dangerous regions, and found so many parts of myself,
who taught me water is not everything,
and gave me new eyes to see through walls,
and when they spoke, sunlight came out of their mouths,
and I was laughing at me with them,
we laughed like children and made pacts to always be loyal,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?
~ Jimmy Santiago Baca ~
From: Immigrants in Our Own Land
Quotation excerpt from:
Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio
Photo by Samuel Rios on Unsplash
