Jimmy Santiago Baca

O, Miami and Books & Books present a reading by poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, in conversation with Adam Pitluk, Executive Editor of American Way magazine.

Jimmy Santiago Baca, born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, was raised first by his grandmother and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum-security prison that he learned to read and write, unearthing a voracious passion for poetry. Some of Baca’s poetry collections include C-Train and Thirteen Mexicans: Dream Boy's Story (Grove Press, 2002), Set This Book on Fire (1999), In the Way of the Sun (1997), Black Mesa Poems (1995), and What's Happening (1982). Baca is also the author of a collection of stories and essays, as well as screenplay, Bound by Honor, which was released by Hollywood Pictures as Blood.