SOURCE: Baca, Jimmy Santiago, and Elizabeth Farnsworth. “Jimmy Santiago Baca.” Online News Hour (9 August 2001):

In the following interview, Baca mentions his memoirs, love of language, poetic collection Healing Earthquakes, and eclectic writing methods.

[Farnsworth:] The writer Jimmy Santiago Baca has two new books out this summer: Healing Earthquakes which is a collection of love poetry, and A Place to Stand, a memoir of his childhood in New Mexico and his six years in a maximum security prison after being convicted, wrongly he says, of possession of drugs with intent to sell. Santiago Baca taught himself to read and write and published his first poetry while there. Since then his eight volumes of verse have won numerous prizes, including the American Book Award. In 1989 he held the Wallace Stevens endowed chair at Yale University.

Thanks for being with us.

[Baca:] Thank you very much.

Why a memoir, prose, about...