SOURCE: Baca, Jimmy Santiago. “Portals of Poetry.” In Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio. pp. 56-76. Santa Fe: Red Crane Books, 1992, 168 p.

In the following excerpt, Baca describes the origins of his poetic voice, the sensuousness of poetry, and his development as a young writer.

Of those who have asked me about my life, some have prized my suffering, and others my arrogance; some my quiet meditative obsessions, and others my childish innocence. But I myself have never seen the poet in me, I have never seen clearly the face of this man who has devoted himself to poetry, enchained to its practice, who demands that writing be my life, who turned up the fortune-teller's cards commanding me to write.

When I write, creating souls in my poems, I seem to see them rise as from a burning stick, some torch in the...