Does anyone know the work of Jimmy Santiago Baca the poet?

Question

Does anyone know the work of the poetry writer Jimmy Santiago Baca? If so hopefully you can help me. I am looking for a certain poem from this writer I don't know the name of it nor do I know in what book I can find it. He talks about how boys should not or rather don't cry. ( I always thought it was called boys don't cry but I can't find it under that name anywhere) Does that sound familiar to anyone if so please let me know I have been looking for this poem like crazy because I heard it once years ago and fell in love with it but I need the name. Please help if you can. Thank you!

Answer 1

Jimmy Baca is a very successful and highly sought after poet. His works are internationally famous and valuable. This will be a job to do at the library.

Answer 2

rummage through his official site here:
http://www.ccc.commnet.edu/latinoguide/secondary/Baca.htm

Check here also:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/547

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Jimmy Santiago Baca is a Chicano poet and activist who believes that the oppression, racism, indifference, ignorance, and arrogance that Chicanos have “traditionally been treated with by the dominant society has been for [Chicanos] a sort of gift. It ensured our isolation and ensured that we can continue to hold on to our folklore and our customs and our rituals and our laughter and our way of doing things.”

The award-winning poet and contemporary poetry critic will speak on The Power of Dream at 7 p.m. April 20 in Mandeville Recital Hall at the University of California, San Diego, as part of month-long activities celebrating the life and accomplishments of Chicano civil rights leader César E. Chávez. Baca’s appearance is being sponsored by the UCSD César E. Chávez Celebration Committee and the Helen Edison Lecture Series.

Baca’s life story runs from orphanage to prison to self-taught writer to a doctorate in literature to advocate for the importance and contributions of Chicanos – and the power of language.

“Language provides me with a journey I would not have otherwise had,” says Baca, “a journey into myself and my people … I have made all the mistakes that anybody could make in life and I have done all the things that you’re not supposed to do ... Language is the only thing that I can go to and drink from and feel invigorated and feel happy about living. It carries the magic of my people’s heart.”

For his poetry and prose, Baca’s awards and honors include the Wallace Stevens Endowed Chair at Yale University, the National Endowment Poetry Award, the National Hispanic Heritage Award, the American Book Award, the Southwest Book Award, and the Vogelstein Foundation Award. He received a bachelor’s degree in English in 1984 and a Ph.D. in literature in 2003 from the University of New Mexico.

Growing up in the barrios of New Mexico, Baca was deserted by his parents, lived with his grandparents briefly, and ended up in an orphanage, but as Baca says, “I was in the streets most of the time. So consequently, what happened was my relationships with people were based on destruction.” By age 16 he had been in county jail “about 20 times for assault and battery with the police” and by his late teens he was sent to prison for “possession with the intent to distribute drugs,” He insists he was innocent of the drug charges, a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.



good luck