SOURCE: Baca, Jimmy Santiago, and John Keene. “‘Poetry Is What We Speak to Each Other’: An Interview with Jimmy Santiago Baca.” Callaloo 17, no. 1 (winter 1994): 33-51.

In the following interview, conducted by telephone in 1993, Baca discusses various topics related to his work as a poet, including the personal necessity of poetry, the blending of femininity and masculinity in his writing, the concept of “Chicanismo,” the American prison system, and the exploitation and degradation of indigenous cultures.

[Keene:] Mr. Baca, in your book of essays, Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio, you speak at length and eloquently about how the school system completely failed you—and how it fails so many young people, especially so many young people of color—and how you had to teach yourself, as a young adult and while in prison, first to read and then to write. Reading and writing...