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Jimmy Santiago Baca was born
in Santa Fe, New Mexico,

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and is a poet, playwright,
screenwriter, memoirist,

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and novelist.

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His many honors include
the National Endowment

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of the Arts Award, International
Prize and the Barnes and Noble

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Discover Award, both
for his memoir, A Place

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To Stand, the American Book
Award for the novel in verse,

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Martin and Meditations on
the South Valley, a Pushcart

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Prize, and the International
Hispanic Heritage Award,

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among others.

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Baca has been featured on
NPR, HBO's Def Poetry Jam,

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and PBS's The Language
of Life with Bill Moyers.

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As with any success,
Baca's achievements

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have been hard-fought.

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The poet found himself convicted
on charges of drug possession

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at the age of 21 and used
his years of incarceration

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to teach himself to read,
to write, and to see himself

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and his heritage in the body
of a poem, one word at a time.

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Since then, Baca has been
awarded the Berkeley Regents

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Fellowship and the
Wallace Stevens Fellowship

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from Yale University.

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And he has taught in
prisons, detention centers,

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and community centers
throughout the United States.

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In Working in the Dark--

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Reflections of a
Poet of the Barrio,

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a book of essays which won
a Southwest Book Award,

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Baca describes himself as this.

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"I am a fool and a king,
genius and imbecile,

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for this is what
it is to be a poet.

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In my poems, whatever
has been crippled in me,

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my hope and love and
trust and endurance,

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rises again in spume of
fire, unleashing bird wings

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and jungle howls.

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My poems beckon those who
are dry into the rain, those

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without love into
lovers' beds, call

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those who are silent to cry
out and moan in reverie."

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I have the pleasure
of introducing

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to you this afternoon
Mr. Jimmy Santiago Baca.

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[APPLAUSE]

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