Immigrants in Our Own Land & Selected Early Poems is a new, expanded edition of Jimmy Santiago Baca's best-selling first book of poetry (originally published by Louisiana State University Press in 1979). A number of poems from early, now unavailable chapbooks have also been included so that the reader can at last have an overview of Baca's remarkable literary development. The voice of Immigrants will be familiar to readers of the widely praised Martin & Meditations on the South Valley and Black Mesa Poems (New Directions, 1987 and 1989), but the territory may not be. Most of the poems in this collection were written while the author was in prison, where he taught himself to read and write. All the poems are concerned with the incarcerated or the disenfranchised; they all communicate the sting from the backhand of the American promise. As Denise Levertov has noted, Baca "is far from being a naive realist," but of poverty and prejudice, of material that is truly raw, he "writes in unconcealed passion."

Combining a stunning lyrical intensity with a profound exploration of the human soul, Healing Earthquakes uses poetry to conjure a romance, from beginning to end. Jimmy Santiago Baca introduces us to a man and woman before they are acquainted and re-creates their first meeting, falling in love, their decision to make a family, the eventual realization of each other's irreconcilable faults, the resulting conflicts, the breakup and hostility, and, finally, their transcendence of the bitterness and resentment. Throughout the relationship we are privy to the couple's astonishing range of emotions: the anguish of loneliness, the heady rush of new love, the irritations and joys of raising children, the difficulties in truly knowing someone, the doldrums of breakup, and so on. It is impossible not to identify with these characters and to recognize one's own experience in theirs.

As he weaves this story, Baca explores many of his traditional themes: the beauty and cruelty of the desert lands where he has spent much of his life, the grace and wisdom of animals, the quiet dignity of life on small Chicano farms. This is an extraordinary work from one of our finest poets.

Jimmy Santiago Baca's harrowing, brilliant memoir of his life before, during, and immediately after the years he spent in a maximum-security prison garnered tremendous critical acclaim and went on to win the prestigious 2001 International Prize. Long considered one of the best poets in America today, Baca was illiterate at the age of twenty-one and facing five to ten years behind bars for selling drugs. A Place to Stand is the remarkable tale of how he emerged after his years in the penitentiary -- much of it spent in isolation -- with the ability to read and a passion for writing poetry. A vivid portrait of life inside a maximum-security prison and an affirmation of one man's spirit in overcoming the most brutal adversity, A Place to Stand stands as proof there is always hope in even the most desperate lives -- (Fort Worth Morning Star-Telegram). A Place to Stand is a hell of a book, quite literally. You won't soon forget it. -- Luis Urrea, The San Diego Union-Tribune This book will have a permanent place in American letters. -- Jim Harrison

The over two million men and women incarcerated in penitentiaries and jails have become America's forgotten population. This extraordinary anthology of autobiographical prison writings brings the reader inside their silent and hidden world.
Culled from more than four hundred submissions nationwide, the thirty-six pieces here represent works by a broad spectrum of prisoners: young and old, unknown and infamous, minimum security check forgers and death row inmates. The authors include notorious "Preppie Murderer" Robert Chambers; an elderly truck driver who strangled the woman he professed to love; and a gang member recalling his violent street life. All talk in their own uncensored words about themselves and their families, about their motives and personal demons, about committing crime and doing time.
Just as this collection gives prisoners the rare chance to communicate who they are and what went wrong, it also gives the reader a unique opportunity to see convicts not as hardened criminals but as human beings.

Author Jimmy Santiago Baca was raised in an orphanage and took to the streets at age eleven, after which this amazing young Chicano taught himself to read and write. His statement, "I think that the work I do is done in the dark", encompasses many meanings central to his preoccupation with the night. In this book Baca passionately explores the troubled years of his youth, from which he emerged with heightened awareness of his ethnic identity as a Chicano, his role as a voice for the misunderstood tribal life of the barrio, and his redemptive vocation as a poet. His American Book Award for poetry in 1988 and his National Endowment for the Arts Hispanic Heritage Award in 1989 show the esteem in which his work is held.

A romantic and a populist, Jimmy Santiago Baca celebrates nature and creativity: the power of "becoming more the river than myself" in Winter Poems Along the Rio Grande. These poems are an expansive meditation on Baca's spiritual life, punctuated always with his feet--repeatedly, rhythmically--on the ground as he runs every morning along the river. Baca contemplates his old life, his new love, his family and friends, those living and those dead, injustices and victories, and Chicano culture. As Denise Levertov remarked, Baca "writes with unconcealed passion" and "manifests both an intense lyricism and that transformative vision which perceives the mythical and archetypal significance of life events."