Background
Jimmy Santiago Baca was born in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, in 1952.
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Jimmy Baca
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He wound up living on the streets, and at the age of twenty-one he was convicted on charges of drug possession and incarcerated. He served six and a half years in prison, three of them in isolation, and having expressed a desire to go to school (the guards considered this dangerous), he was for a time put in the same area of the prison with the inmates on death row before he was released. During this time, Baca taught himself to read and write, and he began to compose poetry.
He sold these poems to fellow inmates in exchange for cigarettes.
A fellow inmate convinced him to submit some of his poems to the magazine Mother Jones, then edited by Denise Levertov. Levertov printed Baca"s poems and began corresponding with him, eventually finding a publisher for his first book
Immigrants in Our Own Land, Baca"s first major collection, was highly praised. A self-styled "poet of the people," Baca conducts writing workshops with children and adults at countless elementary, junior high and high schools, colleges, universities, reservations, barrio community centers, white ghettos, housing projects, correctional facilities and prisons from coast to coast.
In 2004 Baca started a non-profit organization, Cedar Tree, Incorporated., that supports these workshops through charitable donations.
As well as writing workshops, Cedar Tree has produced two documentary films Clamor en Chino and Moving the River Back Home. The organization employs ex-offenders as interns.
