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A Place to Stand
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
276 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 10, 2001
244 people are currently reading
5067 people want to read
About the author
Jimmy Santiago Baca
64 books194 followersJimmy Santiago Baca of Apache and Chicano descent is an American poet and writer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 294 reviews
May 29, 2009
This memoir was difficult to read because of the brutal reality of the criminal justice system that it depicts. This is not a "how-to" lesson if you're an aspiring poet. It is a reality lesson on the perverted American justice system, specifically if you are poor, male, black or brown. That Baca became the writer and poet that he is -- is only testimony to him, and his unique brain. Baca describes what prison is like, what solitary confinement is like, and how sensory deprevation transformed him. Again, this won't work for most people. This is a history of the American southwest in the 20th Century. It is unpleasent. It is not heroic. It makes me want to take some dull scissors and snip the map above Colorado and down across Arizona and through southern California and give it back to Mexico. And while I've got the scissors in hand--cut of the balls of the white men who perpetuate this system.
July 20, 2019
Very honest, brutal and beautiful. Human. We all need a dose of that these days.
January 20, 2011
"After being stripped of everything, all these kids had left was pride - a pride that was distorted, maimed, twisted, and turned against them, a defiant pride that did not allow them to admit that they were human beings and had been hurt." - Baca, p. 21
It has taken me a while to write this review because the information in this memoir is so raw and disturbing that I had to remove myself from it in order to wrap my mind around what I thought. To be honest, I still don't know how to express in words how this book affected me. I'd heard of Jimmy Santiago Baca; I even used some of his poetry in my classes to engage relunctant readers by explaining that he was illiterate until he was 22 years old, taught himself how to read and write in prison, and look at him now! Wow, was I grossly superficial about this man.
Jimmay Santiago Baca is lucky to be alive. This memoir tells a sad tale of a little boy abandoned by both parents when he was five. The circumstances behind this abandonment would haunt him throughout his entire life.
His parents were poor hispanic teenagers who found themselves married and parents by time they were 16. During the next few years, they were plagued with alcoholism and domestic abuse. As a result, Jimmy's father went from job-to-job, drinking his paychecks away while his mother, who could pass for white, found a "reliable" white man, Richard, to take her in. The only condition was that she couldn't bring her "too Hispanic looking" children into the agreement. As a result, she readily dropped her children off with their grandparents and walked away without a backward glance. Heartbroken, Jimmy's father spent his time searching for his wife, and dulling the pain with alcohol until the day he died.
Jimmy admits that he was no angel. Throughout the memoir, he accepts responsibility for his actions with stark honesty that is rarely offered. He tells of the night that the FBI raided the house during a narc drug deal, the brutal tactics that law officials used to obtain "confessions," the corruption of the FBI and judicial system, and the psychological and physical rape of mens' minds, bodies, and souls in prison.
This is not an easy read, and I would suggest it be limited to mature readers. I don't say this because of the content. I say this because this book needs to be taken seriously, and I don't think someone who is immature can fully grasp its implications.
I love this book. There were times that it became too emotional to read, but I think that that's a good thing. Jimmy Santiago Baca shows society that, despite the scars, he survived.
It has taken me a while to write this review because the information in this memoir is so raw and disturbing that I had to remove myself from it in order to wrap my mind around what I thought. To be honest, I still don't know how to express in words how this book affected me. I'd heard of Jimmy Santiago Baca; I even used some of his poetry in my classes to engage relunctant readers by explaining that he was illiterate until he was 22 years old, taught himself how to read and write in prison, and look at him now! Wow, was I grossly superficial about this man.
Jimmay Santiago Baca is lucky to be alive. This memoir tells a sad tale of a little boy abandoned by both parents when he was five. The circumstances behind this abandonment would haunt him throughout his entire life.
His parents were poor hispanic teenagers who found themselves married and parents by time they were 16. During the next few years, they were plagued with alcoholism and domestic abuse. As a result, Jimmy's father went from job-to-job, drinking his paychecks away while his mother, who could pass for white, found a "reliable" white man, Richard, to take her in. The only condition was that she couldn't bring her "too Hispanic looking" children into the agreement. As a result, she readily dropped her children off with their grandparents and walked away without a backward glance. Heartbroken, Jimmy's father spent his time searching for his wife, and dulling the pain with alcohol until the day he died.
Jimmy admits that he was no angel. Throughout the memoir, he accepts responsibility for his actions with stark honesty that is rarely offered. He tells of the night that the FBI raided the house during a narc drug deal, the brutal tactics that law officials used to obtain "confessions," the corruption of the FBI and judicial system, and the psychological and physical rape of mens' minds, bodies, and souls in prison.
This is not an easy read, and I would suggest it be limited to mature readers. I don't say this because of the content. I say this because this book needs to be taken seriously, and I don't think someone who is immature can fully grasp its implications.
I love this book. There were times that it became too emotional to read, but I think that that's a good thing. Jimmy Santiago Baca shows society that, despite the scars, he survived.
July 5, 2011
This book has helped me to appreciate the innate intelligence that I must continuously search for within me. This book has challenged me to refuse the internalization of detrimental stereotypes and societal norms that are imposed on my Chicano culture. This book forces me to recognize the sadness that the New Mexican must experience when clashing with the gringo culture. This book has inspired me to see past the thorns of my heritage and into the sacred blooms that are rarely discovered in my brown-ness. I am proud to look, think, and have lived in areas where Jimmy Santiago Baca grew. This book helps me appreciate the efforts my family has invested in my wellness, through simple and traditional ways, our elders are surviving the onslaught of innovation, convenience, and technology. Jimmy is carrying on an indigenous culture of teaching mentorship, wisdom, elderhood, and life's seasons. Through his struggle I have understanding. Through his mistakes I have fear. Through his courage I have confidence. Through his poetry I am free of the machismo shame in loving. Through his journey I have hope and can believe in myself. His tragedy is not in vein and his prosperity is cultivating minds.
Appropriately I finished reading this on independence day, 2011.
To future carnalitos, we are beautifully rugged, disposable, and feared, but paradoxically we come from loving, tender, and nurtured roots.
Appropriately I finished reading this on independence day, 2011.
To future carnalitos, we are beautifully rugged, disposable, and feared, but paradoxically we come from loving, tender, and nurtured roots.
September 29, 2010
this book is about jimmy and hes brothere mieyo there were little when hes farther first started drinking and getting drunk.he left hes family once in a while and wnet of drinking.jimmy was little always getting abused by hes dad. one day jimmys mom count take it any more she ran away with a white family and got married to a guy name richard he was rich.jimmys dad went looking after her and jimmy and hes brother got whent and lived with hes gramdma. after a while she got tired of them and then sh decided to put them in orphange and then they were living with nuns now nobody liked them and when jimmy was a little bit older he started getting in more trouble and he ran away he got put in detantion center and hes brother mieyo became a drug dealer. when jimmy was a little bit more older he also became a drug dealer and started selling drugs het got cought and he went to prison for 5 years he had bet a woman he loved she has came to prison but only to say she ditn want him no more and she was havigh fun parting and stuff back home.later he found out hes brother got killed hes mother got murder and hes dad past away and hes x overdose he was alone then started writting poetry..
February 13, 2014
This book is a perennial favorite with students. I'm currently teaching it to students who say they "don't read", however they are fully engaged in Baca's life story, and they are even reading his poetry on their own. All good signs of a teachable book.
May 13, 2011
This book is about a man named jimmy he has had a horrible childhood because when he was a little kid his mom left him and his brother, for a white man. They stayed at there granpa's and granma's for a little while he realy like his granpa alot, but he missed his mom a lot. Every day he would ask for her, his granpa said, shell be back soon,until one day his granpa passt away, Jimmy and his brother had to stay in a orpanage until he was 12 or 13 he had to move to this other place. He started to attend school but he wasent very good at it. he joined a sport, football he was good at it, the coached liked him alot one day he invited it him over, to see the house. They wanted to adopt him but Jimmy said, no. The coach drove him back to the orpanage, and after dat he stoped attending school. As he grew older he started smocking and drinking, his brother sign up for the army and dat he wasnt coming back in a while.
SO he useully party a lot and hanged out with friends and look for jobs. He got involed in drugs and he started to sell them with his friend Rick and his girlfriend Lonnie, they sold em for awhile until one day they got busted by the FBI. They managed to get his girlfriend and Rick but he escaped. A few days later he turned himself in and was to serve prison for 5 years. As he stayed he learns that you have to stand up for yourseld and to never ever show fear. He learns to read and write and starts making his own poems. the years pass he notices that the guards dont treat them fair. As he stays in prison he learns not to go crazy inside cauz your loose your mind. as he stays in prison he faces many obstecles. it is a very good book to read.
SO he useully party a lot and hanged out with friends and look for jobs. He got involed in drugs and he started to sell them with his friend Rick and his girlfriend Lonnie, they sold em for awhile until one day they got busted by the FBI. They managed to get his girlfriend and Rick but he escaped. A few days later he turned himself in and was to serve prison for 5 years. As he stayed he learns that you have to stand up for yourseld and to never ever show fear. He learns to read and write and starts making his own poems. the years pass he notices that the guards dont treat them fair. As he stays in prison he learns not to go crazy inside cauz your loose your mind. as he stays in prison he faces many obstecles. it is a very good book to read.
June 21, 2020
An essential read
March 24, 2010
An incredible prison memoir but also a heartbreaking view into the troubled life of a thoughtful boy abandoned by his mother and left to fend for himself by his own wits. A story of family, crime, solitude, desire, ambition and the never-ending drive to fulfil the human heart.
January 30, 2011
Pg. 152-153
"Had I been able to share my feelings that moment, I would have said what I was able to add years later, lying on my cot in an isolation cell in total darkness. I would have said I felt the many lives that had come before me, the wind carrying within the vast space of the range, and all that lived in the range--cows, grass, insects-- but something deeper. Old women leaving their windows open so the breeze can pass through the rooms, blessing the walls, chasing away evil spirits, anointing floors, beds, and clothing with it's tepid hand. The breeze excites larks to jackknife over the park pond, knocks on doors to ask people to remember their ancestors, peels paint off trucks and scrapes rust from windmill blades and withers young shoots of alfalfa, cleans what it touches and brings age and emptiness to dirt roads. This breeze blows on my brow sometimes when I'm on the prairie, and I feel immortal; it whispers, Better times will come, and I believe my dreams will come true. The breeze chases the young heels of children and pulls at little girls' ponytails, draws red happiness out from their hears and pools it in their cold cheeks, scruffs youth up, tugs at old women's long-sleeved bereavement dresses, sweeps away veils and handkerchiefs and dries their tears. It roars up from canyons, whistles from caves, blows fountains of green leaves across the air, loosens shale from cliffs, tears cottonwood pods, and bursts them to release fluffy cotton that sails past puffs of chimney smoke.
"I felt it all, the magic that Emiliano had urged me to feel and worship, to surrender to. The wild wind tossed itself on top of grass ends and nibbled seeds, danced with dust, took hold of he devil and sung him around a cactus, through sagebrush, to the music of a hundred insect wings vibrating and snakes hissing. It scurried on, laughing a chill down the spines of vaqueros on horseback, making their ponies lay their ears back, attentive to the spirits. It howled and thrashed in arroyos and launched itself in swoops, veering off sides of boulders and loose tin, creeping into the pueblo, scattering its ancient sandy prayers. The wind reclined in flame and swung itself to sleep, played with tumbleweeds, untwined itself like a slow-opening music box, and gave to the naked woman sleeping with her lover a threadbare love song, to the man meditating on life under a tree its lyrical wounds. The wind, the wind, the wind; ruffles curtains with its remorse, flings the child's weeping complaint over post fences, muffles grief in the graying hair of middle-aged women, thuds at back doors and windows, slaps broken lumber against hinges, makes dogs cower behind houses, destroys tender gardens, effaces names on cemetery headstones, and makes my heart ache as blowing sand buries a wedding ring in the field. I felt all my people,felt them deep in the hard work they did, in faint and delicate red-weed prairie flowers, in the arguments over right and wrong, in my people's irascible desire to live, which was mine as well. I felt their will was growing inside me and would ultimately let me be free as the wind."
This is one of the best examples of Santiago-Baca's lyrical language and haunting imagery used throughout "A Place to Stand."
The story is one that resonates with me as I work in the health and youth development field, often times serving marginalized populations including foster youth, youth in juvenile hall, and immigrant youth. It was just so heartbreaking to listen to a story of oppression and heartbreak that was only made tolerable by the triumphant ending and continuous amazement at his ability to capture his experiences with the written word.
"Attempts at placing me in a foster home have failed. When prospective parents come, my brother and I are never chosen. Our hair, our color, our speech--everything is wrong about us. She asks me how I feel and other personal questions, and I respond with shrugs, not really caring about anything. I already know what I'm going to do. That night I sneak out of my dorm and meet my brother by the fence. He promises he'll follow me as I take off down the ditch under the stars, crossing the alfalfa fields until I stop at the place we're supposed to meet. He never comes. Later the cops arrest me for running away. After several runaways I'm finally taken to the Detention Center for Boys and put behind bars. In the end, as always, a cell is the only place they have for kids without families"
P. 174
"I knew almost nothing about my culture and I was surprised by the extent of his knowledge. From history to language to politics, he had opinions on everything, and when he spoke he did so with a flair-- his expression intense, his words passionate, his hands pointing or pounding or waving with conviction. He told me one day that to outsiders his tattoos symbolized criminality and rebellion. But it was not so, he said. "I wear my culture on my skin. They want to make me forget who I am, the beauty of my people and my heritage, but to do it they got to peel my skin off. And if they ever do that, they'll kill me doing it-- and that's good, because once they make you forget the language and history, they've killed you anyway. I'm alive and free, no matter how many bars they put me behind."
P.223-224
"Had I been able to share my feelings that moment, I would have said what I was able to add years later, lying on my cot in an isolation cell in total darkness. I would have said I felt the many lives that had come before me, the wind carrying within the vast space of the range, and all that lived in the range--cows, grass, insects-- but something deeper. Old women leaving their windows open so the breeze can pass through the rooms, blessing the walls, chasing away evil spirits, anointing floors, beds, and clothing with it's tepid hand. The breeze excites larks to jackknife over the park pond, knocks on doors to ask people to remember their ancestors, peels paint off trucks and scrapes rust from windmill blades and withers young shoots of alfalfa, cleans what it touches and brings age and emptiness to dirt roads. This breeze blows on my brow sometimes when I'm on the prairie, and I feel immortal; it whispers, Better times will come, and I believe my dreams will come true. The breeze chases the young heels of children and pulls at little girls' ponytails, draws red happiness out from their hears and pools it in their cold cheeks, scruffs youth up, tugs at old women's long-sleeved bereavement dresses, sweeps away veils and handkerchiefs and dries their tears. It roars up from canyons, whistles from caves, blows fountains of green leaves across the air, loosens shale from cliffs, tears cottonwood pods, and bursts them to release fluffy cotton that sails past puffs of chimney smoke.
"I felt it all, the magic that Emiliano had urged me to feel and worship, to surrender to. The wild wind tossed itself on top of grass ends and nibbled seeds, danced with dust, took hold of he devil and sung him around a cactus, through sagebrush, to the music of a hundred insect wings vibrating and snakes hissing. It scurried on, laughing a chill down the spines of vaqueros on horseback, making their ponies lay their ears back, attentive to the spirits. It howled and thrashed in arroyos and launched itself in swoops, veering off sides of boulders and loose tin, creeping into the pueblo, scattering its ancient sandy prayers. The wind reclined in flame and swung itself to sleep, played with tumbleweeds, untwined itself like a slow-opening music box, and gave to the naked woman sleeping with her lover a threadbare love song, to the man meditating on life under a tree its lyrical wounds. The wind, the wind, the wind; ruffles curtains with its remorse, flings the child's weeping complaint over post fences, muffles grief in the graying hair of middle-aged women, thuds at back doors and windows, slaps broken lumber against hinges, makes dogs cower behind houses, destroys tender gardens, effaces names on cemetery headstones, and makes my heart ache as blowing sand buries a wedding ring in the field. I felt all my people,felt them deep in the hard work they did, in faint and delicate red-weed prairie flowers, in the arguments over right and wrong, in my people's irascible desire to live, which was mine as well. I felt their will was growing inside me and would ultimately let me be free as the wind."
This is one of the best examples of Santiago-Baca's lyrical language and haunting imagery used throughout "A Place to Stand."
The story is one that resonates with me as I work in the health and youth development field, often times serving marginalized populations including foster youth, youth in juvenile hall, and immigrant youth. It was just so heartbreaking to listen to a story of oppression and heartbreak that was only made tolerable by the triumphant ending and continuous amazement at his ability to capture his experiences with the written word.
"Attempts at placing me in a foster home have failed. When prospective parents come, my brother and I are never chosen. Our hair, our color, our speech--everything is wrong about us. She asks me how I feel and other personal questions, and I respond with shrugs, not really caring about anything. I already know what I'm going to do. That night I sneak out of my dorm and meet my brother by the fence. He promises he'll follow me as I take off down the ditch under the stars, crossing the alfalfa fields until I stop at the place we're supposed to meet. He never comes. Later the cops arrest me for running away. After several runaways I'm finally taken to the Detention Center for Boys and put behind bars. In the end, as always, a cell is the only place they have for kids without families"
P. 174
"I knew almost nothing about my culture and I was surprised by the extent of his knowledge. From history to language to politics, he had opinions on everything, and when he spoke he did so with a flair-- his expression intense, his words passionate, his hands pointing or pounding or waving with conviction. He told me one day that to outsiders his tattoos symbolized criminality and rebellion. But it was not so, he said. "I wear my culture on my skin. They want to make me forget who I am, the beauty of my people and my heritage, but to do it they got to peel my skin off. And if they ever do that, they'll kill me doing it-- and that's good, because once they make you forget the language and history, they've killed you anyway. I'm alive and free, no matter how many bars they put me behind."
P.223-224
April 14, 2024
This memoir is a powerful one. Not only does Mr. Baca take the reader on a journey from his childhood but the hard time in prison.
What I find most beautiful of his writing and experience is how he found forgiveness in them, himself and the world. Now that is powerful. Being compassionate to ourself is VERY difficult to do and he has found it (with such a world life experience and journey).
What I find most beautiful of his writing and experience is how he found forgiveness in them, himself and the world. Now that is powerful. Being compassionate to ourself is VERY difficult to do and he has found it (with such a world life experience and journey).
August 9, 2024
One of the most important books I’ve read. This book left me speechless. It’s difficult to read, but there is so much beauty in it. I felt like I was reading the history of my family members, neighbors, and community.
January 5, 2017
Jimmy Santiago Baca, who wrote this memoir about turning from a life of crime after learning to read in prison, is a gifted writer.
I liked the way he kept circling back to add detail to prior events just when his narrative needed the detail. I loved the lyrical descriptions of his impoverished Chicano community and certain of his childhood memories.
But there is no doubt that once he went to prison for drug dealing, a lifetime of anger bubbled over into some pretty shocking brutality. I did get the point that in a maximum security prison, it was either eat or be eaten. But at the end of his sentence, as he began to see that his vicious warden was doing everything possible not to release him, Baca came very close to taking out his frustration on another inmate. He would probably have killed him if a lifer hadn't stabbed the guy first for the express purpose of helping Baca get released.
The lifer said he was stuck there anyway. "He wrote that I didn't belong in prison, that I needed to be out there writing for people like him, telling the truth about the life that prisoners have to endure."
Baca wants to be honest in his memoir, and I am grateful. But at times it seems like he excuses certain behaviors too readily. He is resentful that he got caught when someone else set up a drug deal, not him. But he had so often promised himself to go straight and didn't. Would he really have changed without getting caught? And he certainly was a dealer, if not at that particular moment.
Reading about Baca's need to turn his frustration to violence so close to his release made me wonder if he would always have dangerous episodes in his new life as a poet with a growing reputation. How would he control frustration around his wife and children? The book doesn't say. Neither does the web.
There is no doubt that Baca experienced appalling pain at a very young age in life, especially from his mother's abandonment of her children, and that he always wanted to do right. He seems like a decent person facing incredible odds. I was rooting for him the whole time. His basic strength of character, perhaps derived from a loving grandfather, enables Baca to hold on to what is good and to attract supportive people to him. As I write this, I am sending him good vibes for a peaceful future.
I liked the way he kept circling back to add detail to prior events just when his narrative needed the detail. I loved the lyrical descriptions of his impoverished Chicano community and certain of his childhood memories.
But there is no doubt that once he went to prison for drug dealing, a lifetime of anger bubbled over into some pretty shocking brutality. I did get the point that in a maximum security prison, it was either eat or be eaten. But at the end of his sentence, as he began to see that his vicious warden was doing everything possible not to release him, Baca came very close to taking out his frustration on another inmate. He would probably have killed him if a lifer hadn't stabbed the guy first for the express purpose of helping Baca get released.
The lifer said he was stuck there anyway. "He wrote that I didn't belong in prison, that I needed to be out there writing for people like him, telling the truth about the life that prisoners have to endure."
Baca wants to be honest in his memoir, and I am grateful. But at times it seems like he excuses certain behaviors too readily. He is resentful that he got caught when someone else set up a drug deal, not him. But he had so often promised himself to go straight and didn't. Would he really have changed without getting caught? And he certainly was a dealer, if not at that particular moment.
Reading about Baca's need to turn his frustration to violence so close to his release made me wonder if he would always have dangerous episodes in his new life as a poet with a growing reputation. How would he control frustration around his wife and children? The book doesn't say. Neither does the web.
There is no doubt that Baca experienced appalling pain at a very young age in life, especially from his mother's abandonment of her children, and that he always wanted to do right. He seems like a decent person facing incredible odds. I was rooting for him the whole time. His basic strength of character, perhaps derived from a loving grandfather, enables Baca to hold on to what is good and to attract supportive people to him. As I write this, I am sending him good vibes for a peaceful future.
May 22, 2015
Rarely does the average person get a glimpse of life behind bars in a maximum-security prison. Our understanding of the criminal mind, the US judicial system, and the intimacies of life in prison are limited to a great degree by what Hollywood would have us believe. In his memoir, A Place to Stand, Jimmy Santiago Baca offers his reader the opportunity to know the circumstances, motivation, and intent of one condemned man: himself.
We are led by the hand through his traumatizing childhood where Baca and his siblings were abandoned by his mother and alcoholic father. He shares the sorrowful dissolution of his family, the details of a heartbreaking and dysfunctional relationship, and the journey that takes him to the west coast where he falls into opportunity by way of dealing drugs, which ultimately lands him in prison. Baca describes daily prison life, unspoken codes of conduct, the necessity of gang affiliation, and the deeds one performs to survive in graphic detail.
Baca recants his tale in such a way that the reader feels compassion for his circumstances, yet still accepts that there are consequences for the choices he makes. Maximum security prison, though? Baca does ask the reader to wonder about the productivity of placing someone like himself into that environment. We journey with Baca into solitary confinement where we can spend months meditating on events in his early life, and puzzle through who he truly is, what he’s willing to accept, and on what position he finally makes a stand. For Baca, it’s education.
Throughout the narrative, it’s Baca’s relentless plodding onto the next step that keeps the reader believing there must be more for him. Denied an education by the prison system, Baca makes his own study of letters, words, writing, and poetry. Through his poetry, Baca opens doors of discovery for himself and for some of the inmates that witness and share his experience. A Place to Stand is a thought-provoking look into what makes a man a criminal, and what makes his life a work of art.
We are led by the hand through his traumatizing childhood where Baca and his siblings were abandoned by his mother and alcoholic father. He shares the sorrowful dissolution of his family, the details of a heartbreaking and dysfunctional relationship, and the journey that takes him to the west coast where he falls into opportunity by way of dealing drugs, which ultimately lands him in prison. Baca describes daily prison life, unspoken codes of conduct, the necessity of gang affiliation, and the deeds one performs to survive in graphic detail.
Baca recants his tale in such a way that the reader feels compassion for his circumstances, yet still accepts that there are consequences for the choices he makes. Maximum security prison, though? Baca does ask the reader to wonder about the productivity of placing someone like himself into that environment. We journey with Baca into solitary confinement where we can spend months meditating on events in his early life, and puzzle through who he truly is, what he’s willing to accept, and on what position he finally makes a stand. For Baca, it’s education.
Throughout the narrative, it’s Baca’s relentless plodding onto the next step that keeps the reader believing there must be more for him. Denied an education by the prison system, Baca makes his own study of letters, words, writing, and poetry. Through his poetry, Baca opens doors of discovery for himself and for some of the inmates that witness and share his experience. A Place to Stand is a thought-provoking look into what makes a man a criminal, and what makes his life a work of art.
March 2, 2018
Admittedly, I could have Baca all wrong... I was intrigued enough by the documentary
A Place to Stand
to get the book, read it and re-watch the doc. While Baca had little to live for when he entered Arizona State Prison, the modern fairy tale of his unearthed new center ("the quiet strength of poetry") feels a bit too much like a self-serving portrayal. His published success and acclaim and prison background makes for a memoir worth reading, but I expected more revelations of character defects - revealed and triumphed. Mentor Bonafide comes across as darker and more dangerous and may be closer to what Baca is really, for all I know. Also, a plastic prison-made blowgun dart that passes through a human torso strains credulity and emphasized the lingering doubts I have that much of this may be smoke and mirrors. Also, this could be a reflection of my inability to appreciate the sentimental metaphor of his free verse.
November 23, 2008
Baca has always been one of my favorite poets. His work captures the sights, sounds, and feels of the Chicano neighborhoods of the Albuquerque where I grew up.
His story of a young illiterate man who became a poet to save himself in prison is amazing and signals that no human being should be completely written off as wasted.
His story of a young illiterate man who became a poet to save himself in prison is amazing and signals that no human being should be completely written off as wasted.
November 12, 2014
This book reminds me of the importance of literacy and gives me hope like no other book has. Read it and then learn more about the Cedar Tree organization, which provides writing workshops to people in deprived communities, prisons, detention centers, and schools for at-risk youth. Thank you for this book and your work, Jimmy!
July 10, 2011
Excellently written memoir about one man's spiritual journey through parental abandonment and surviving the brutality of an unjust penal code. In a way, A Place to Stand demonstrates the effects on humans when society at large rejects one's culture.
August 31, 2015
Reading Baca's memoir is a painful process, as most of the people he loves seem to abandon him; however, his love for language and honest telling of what it takes to survive in prison is a gift to most of us who are ignorant about such a world.
June 28, 2007
Read this for Chicano lit class. One of my faves. Couldn't put it down.
July 21, 2007
This was one of the first books of the Latino Lit genre that I read and I loved it. Jimmy's story is heartbreaking and hopeful.
January 19, 2013
I loved this book, real characters, not contrived, believable.
May 15, 2015
Really powerful. His story is why I love to read memoirs so much, but this one is a much higher writing quality than a lot of memoirs.
March 1, 2016
Heartbreaking, poignant, illuminating. This was an intense read.
March 15, 2016
Great book defines human transformation
September 17, 2023
Horrific how Jimmy was treated as a lad and in prison AND totally inspiring and wonderful how he learned to read and write and become a poet. He has stayed in my awe and happiness all these years.
September 1, 2015
From the prologue the reader knows that the story of Jimmy Baca will not be a happy one, yet there is a hint of hope and purpose. From the first sentence you are drawn into Jimmy's world...
"I was five years old the first time I ever set foot in prison."
Ultimately he tells a story of redemption, but first you journey with him and his people a veritable "trail of tears" -- pain, injustice, abuse, , passion, mercy, betrayal, friendship. Like Gandhi, Mandela, and Malamud's "Fixer", Baca's choices set him apart and demanded attention. His is another testament to the power of literature to heal and re-direct lives. No doubt he was born with the poet's heart, mind, and perception -- but words were the only way to manifest them.
This autobiographical work includes some of his poems, which are powerfully evocative. He never got to attend "GED" classes -- a privilege which was withheld from him. He was virtually illiterate as a twenty-year-old. He laboriously self-taught himself to read and write. It is remarkable that quality literature fell into his hands. He became better read than most youth who graduate from high school and college today.
I recommend this book to any and all. It is full of heart. It would never have crossed my radar were it not for a book-group.
Excerpts follow:
At the tender age of seven he was put in the care of nuns at a boy's home and by his teens he was a detention center resident. He shares..."It was at the detention center that I first came in contact with boys who were already well on their way to becoming criminals; whose friendship taught me I was more like them than like the boys outside the cells, living in a society that would never accept me, in a world made of parents, nice clothes, and loving care. You could see the narrowing of life's possibilities in the cold, challenging eyes of the homeboys in the detention center; you could see the numbing of their hearts in their swaggering postures. All of them had been wounded, hurt, abused, ignored; already, aggression was in their talk, in the way they let off steam over their disappointments, in the way they expressed themselves. It was all they allowed themselves to express, for each of them knew they could be hurt again if they tried anything different. So instead they refined what they did know to its own kind of perfection." page 32
Much later (page 152) he shares..."Had I been able to share my feelings that moment, I would have said what I was able to add years later, lying on my cot in an isolation cell in total darkness. I would have said I felt the many lives that had come before me, the wind carrying within the vast space of the range, and all that lived in the range--cows, grass, insects-but something deeper. Old women leaving their windows open so the breeze can pass through the rooms, blessing the walls, chasing away evil spirits, anointing floors, beds, and clothing with its tepid hand. The breeze excites larks to jackknife over the park pond, knocks on doors to ask people to remember their ancestors, peels paint off trucks and scrapes rust from windmill blades and withers young shoots of alfalfa, cleans what it touches and brings age and emptiness to dirt roads. This breeze blows on my brow sometimes when I'm on the prairie, and I feel immortal; it whispers, Better times will come, and I believe my dreams will come true. The breeze chases the young heels of children and pulls at little girls' ponytails, draws red happiness out from their hearts and pools it in their cold cheeks, scruffs youth up, tugs at old women's long-sleeved bereavement dresses, sweeps away veils and handkerchiefs and dries their tears. It roars up from canyons, whistles from caves, blows fountains of green leaves across the air, loosens shale from cliffs, tears cottonwood pods, and bursts them to release fluffy cotton that sails past puffs of chimney smoke."
Later he observes (page 239)..."Language was opening me up in ways I couldn't explain and I assumed it was part of the apprenticeship of a poet. I culled poetry from odors, sounds, faces, and ordinary events occurring around me. Breezes bulged me as if I were cloth; sounds nicked their marks on my nerves; objects made impressions on my sight as if in clay. There, in the soft lightning of language, life entered and ground itself in me and I was flowing with the grain of the universe. Language placed my life experiences in a new context, freeing me for the moment to become with air as air, with clouds as clouds, from which new associations arose to engage me in present life in a more purposeful way."
On page 243..."After packing, I waited on my bunk, thinking of my cell as a womb from which I was repeatedly born into a person with greater and deeper convictions. I reflected on the challenges in understanding certain poets, on how I loved Neruda's work more and more, and Whitman's expansive celebrations of the common person. Russian writers wrote under oppression and gave me hope. My cell was my monastic refuge. Instead of closing in on me, shutting me off from life, and cannibalizing me, my cell was the place where I experienced the most abject grief, in which I yearned to the point of screaming for physical freedom. Through the barred cell window I saw lightning and thunder and rain and wind and sun and stars and moon that mercifully offered me reprieve from my loneliness. There I dreamed and kept intact my desires for live and family and freedom."
On page 244..."In this cell, meditative hours spent in solitary writing and reading broke old molds, leaving me distraught and empty and forcing me further out on the edge for answers to my questions and pain. Psychic wounds don't come in the form of knives, blades, guns, clubs; they arrive in the form of boxes--boxes in trucks, under beds, in my apartment when I could no longer pay the rent and had to move. Still, I was comforted by the thought that I was bigger than my box. I was what mattered, not the box. I lived OUT of a box, not in one. I was a witness, not a victim. I was a witness for those who for one reason or another would never have a place of their own, would never have the opportunity to make their lives stable enough because resources weren't available or because they just could not get it together. My job was to witness and record the "it" of their lives, to celebrate those who don't have a place in this world to stand and call home. For those people, my journals, poems, and writings are home. My pen and heart chronicle their hopes, doubts, regrets, loves, despairs, and dreams. I do this partly out of selfishness, because it helps to heal my own impermanence, my own despair. My role as witness is to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless, of which I am one."
"I was five years old the first time I ever set foot in prison."
Ultimately he tells a story of redemption, but first you journey with him and his people a veritable "trail of tears" -- pain, injustice, abuse, , passion, mercy, betrayal, friendship. Like Gandhi, Mandela, and Malamud's "Fixer", Baca's choices set him apart and demanded attention. His is another testament to the power of literature to heal and re-direct lives. No doubt he was born with the poet's heart, mind, and perception -- but words were the only way to manifest them.
This autobiographical work includes some of his poems, which are powerfully evocative. He never got to attend "GED" classes -- a privilege which was withheld from him. He was virtually illiterate as a twenty-year-old. He laboriously self-taught himself to read and write. It is remarkable that quality literature fell into his hands. He became better read than most youth who graduate from high school and college today.
I recommend this book to any and all. It is full of heart. It would never have crossed my radar were it not for a book-group.
Excerpts follow:
At the tender age of seven he was put in the care of nuns at a boy's home and by his teens he was a detention center resident. He shares..."It was at the detention center that I first came in contact with boys who were already well on their way to becoming criminals; whose friendship taught me I was more like them than like the boys outside the cells, living in a society that would never accept me, in a world made of parents, nice clothes, and loving care. You could see the narrowing of life's possibilities in the cold, challenging eyes of the homeboys in the detention center; you could see the numbing of their hearts in their swaggering postures. All of them had been wounded, hurt, abused, ignored; already, aggression was in their talk, in the way they let off steam over their disappointments, in the way they expressed themselves. It was all they allowed themselves to express, for each of them knew they could be hurt again if they tried anything different. So instead they refined what they did know to its own kind of perfection." page 32
Much later (page 152) he shares..."Had I been able to share my feelings that moment, I would have said what I was able to add years later, lying on my cot in an isolation cell in total darkness. I would have said I felt the many lives that had come before me, the wind carrying within the vast space of the range, and all that lived in the range--cows, grass, insects-but something deeper. Old women leaving their windows open so the breeze can pass through the rooms, blessing the walls, chasing away evil spirits, anointing floors, beds, and clothing with its tepid hand. The breeze excites larks to jackknife over the park pond, knocks on doors to ask people to remember their ancestors, peels paint off trucks and scrapes rust from windmill blades and withers young shoots of alfalfa, cleans what it touches and brings age and emptiness to dirt roads. This breeze blows on my brow sometimes when I'm on the prairie, and I feel immortal; it whispers, Better times will come, and I believe my dreams will come true. The breeze chases the young heels of children and pulls at little girls' ponytails, draws red happiness out from their hearts and pools it in their cold cheeks, scruffs youth up, tugs at old women's long-sleeved bereavement dresses, sweeps away veils and handkerchiefs and dries their tears. It roars up from canyons, whistles from caves, blows fountains of green leaves across the air, loosens shale from cliffs, tears cottonwood pods, and bursts them to release fluffy cotton that sails past puffs of chimney smoke."
Later he observes (page 239)..."Language was opening me up in ways I couldn't explain and I assumed it was part of the apprenticeship of a poet. I culled poetry from odors, sounds, faces, and ordinary events occurring around me. Breezes bulged me as if I were cloth; sounds nicked their marks on my nerves; objects made impressions on my sight as if in clay. There, in the soft lightning of language, life entered and ground itself in me and I was flowing with the grain of the universe. Language placed my life experiences in a new context, freeing me for the moment to become with air as air, with clouds as clouds, from which new associations arose to engage me in present life in a more purposeful way."
On page 243..."After packing, I waited on my bunk, thinking of my cell as a womb from which I was repeatedly born into a person with greater and deeper convictions. I reflected on the challenges in understanding certain poets, on how I loved Neruda's work more and more, and Whitman's expansive celebrations of the common person. Russian writers wrote under oppression and gave me hope. My cell was my monastic refuge. Instead of closing in on me, shutting me off from life, and cannibalizing me, my cell was the place where I experienced the most abject grief, in which I yearned to the point of screaming for physical freedom. Through the barred cell window I saw lightning and thunder and rain and wind and sun and stars and moon that mercifully offered me reprieve from my loneliness. There I dreamed and kept intact my desires for live and family and freedom."
On page 244..."In this cell, meditative hours spent in solitary writing and reading broke old molds, leaving me distraught and empty and forcing me further out on the edge for answers to my questions and pain. Psychic wounds don't come in the form of knives, blades, guns, clubs; they arrive in the form of boxes--boxes in trucks, under beds, in my apartment when I could no longer pay the rent and had to move. Still, I was comforted by the thought that I was bigger than my box. I was what mattered, not the box. I lived OUT of a box, not in one. I was a witness, not a victim. I was a witness for those who for one reason or another would never have a place of their own, would never have the opportunity to make their lives stable enough because resources weren't available or because they just could not get it together. My job was to witness and record the "it" of their lives, to celebrate those who don't have a place in this world to stand and call home. For those people, my journals, poems, and writings are home. My pen and heart chronicle their hopes, doubts, regrets, loves, despairs, and dreams. I do this partly out of selfishness, because it helps to heal my own impermanence, my own despair. My role as witness is to give voice to the voiceless and hope to the hopeless, of which I am one."
March 11, 2019
Jimmy Baca's story is hard- his childhood went from bad to worse when his grandfather died. His parents were both deeply troubled and unable to take care of him and his brother. They ended up in a cruel orphanage and when he ran away he was put in detention. This is just one of the frustrating hands of fate that led him down the wrong path. He ends up in prison in New Mexico at the age of 20- where the conditions were brutal, barbaric, and soul-crushing. Violence, defiance, and despair were always there- waiting to destroy him. Months of isolation, where he meticulously relived his past in his mind, offered some escape. Eventually- teaching himself to read, and then to discover poetry, gave him hope.
I loved this passage (see pages 152-153 for the whole thing) where he writes powerfully and beautifully about wind. . . . "Had I been able to share my feelings that moment, I would have said what I was able to add years later, lying on my cot in an isolation cell in total darkness. I would have said I felt the many lives that had come before me, the wind carrying within the vast space of the range, and all that lived in the range- cows, grass, insects- but something deeper. Old women leaving their windows open so the breeze can pass through the rooms, blessing the walls, chasing away evil spirits, anointing floors, beds, and clothing with its tepid hand. The breeze excites larks to jackknife over the park pond, knocks on doors to ask people to remember their ancestors, peels paint off trucks and scrapes rust from windmill blades and withers young shoots of alfalfa, cleans what it touches and brings emptiness to dirt roads. This breeze blows on my brow and sometimes when I'm on the prairie, and I feel immortal; it whispers. Better times will come, and I believe my dreams will come true."
I loved this passage (see pages 152-153 for the whole thing) where he writes powerfully and beautifully about wind. . . . "Had I been able to share my feelings that moment, I would have said what I was able to add years later, lying on my cot in an isolation cell in total darkness. I would have said I felt the many lives that had come before me, the wind carrying within the vast space of the range, and all that lived in the range- cows, grass, insects- but something deeper. Old women leaving their windows open so the breeze can pass through the rooms, blessing the walls, chasing away evil spirits, anointing floors, beds, and clothing with its tepid hand. The breeze excites larks to jackknife over the park pond, knocks on doors to ask people to remember their ancestors, peels paint off trucks and scrapes rust from windmill blades and withers young shoots of alfalfa, cleans what it touches and brings emptiness to dirt roads. This breeze blows on my brow and sometimes when I'm on the prairie, and I feel immortal; it whispers. Better times will come, and I believe my dreams will come true."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 7, 2022
This memoir was really difficult to read for me because of how life treated Jimmy and everything was based on real facts. We are living in a world that was so much better than before, racist society like what Jimmy was dealing through. Sometimes I even wonder, am I appreciate my life enough?
I felt really bad for the last chapters, when his mom once and ever wanted to live for herself, for her freedom, but her new freaking husband took it away by shot her in the head. I felt so upset, she was living with deception for her whole life because Spanish and Mexicans weren’t acceptable for the white family. Now, she had the courage to walk away, she had the power to live for herself, then, he took it away…
From what happened to Mieyo and Jimmy, America still a country with all racism, the problem is never solve. When they will discover that we are all human-being after all? Breathing in the same air, despite rich or poor, when we die, we carry nothing with us. Why we cannot be nice with others? Life is already tough, it even tougher with the rejection of people called themselves human-being
I felt really bad for the last chapters, when his mom once and ever wanted to live for herself, for her freedom, but her new freaking husband took it away by shot her in the head. I felt so upset, she was living with deception for her whole life because Spanish and Mexicans weren’t acceptable for the white family. Now, she had the courage to walk away, she had the power to live for herself, then, he took it away…
From what happened to Mieyo and Jimmy, America still a country with all racism, the problem is never solve. When they will discover that we are all human-being after all? Breathing in the same air, despite rich or poor, when we die, we carry nothing with us. Why we cannot be nice with others? Life is already tough, it even tougher with the rejection of people called themselves human-being
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 12, 2021
this was a really interesting book and i have a lot of mixed feelings. i thought from a first person perspective of incarceration, this was a great book and a lot of the points of view were somewhat rooted in abolition and harn reduction. i also liked how he reconnected with his chicano and indigenous culture throughout the book and how he found community to help with that. another thing i liked was the poet's perspective and how he wrote and read poetry to help him grow in spite of prison's violence and trauma. i thought there was a lot to unpack in regards to the author's casual misogyny and homophobia in some places, and his misgendering (kinda) and non-acknowledgment of the trans women he interacted with in (a men's) prison.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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