LITR 4332: American Minority Literature

Student Poetry Presentation 2007

The poet: Born in New Mexico of Indio-Mexican descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was raised first by his grandmother and later sent to an orphanage. A runaway at age 13, it was after Baca was sentenced to five years in a maximum security prison that he began to turn his life around: he learned to read and write and unearthed a voracious passion for poetry. Instead of becoming a hardened criminal, he emerged from prison a writer. Baca has devoted his post-prison life to writing and teaching others who are overcoming hardship. His themes include American Southwest barrios, addiction, injustice, education, community, and love. He has performed hundreds of writing workshops in prisons, community centers, libraries, and universities throughout the country. In 2006 he won the Cornelius P. Turner Award, which recognizes one GED graduate a year who has made an outstanding contribution to society in education, justice, health, public service and social welfare. 

Education: 1984 BA English, University of New Mexico
2003, PhD, Literature, University of New Mexico

Course Objectives and Interpretations:

2b. to detect "class" as a repressed subject of American discourse.  “You can tell you’re an American if you can’t talk about class.”

5a. To discover the power of poetry and fiction to help "others" hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience.

Questions:

1.    What does he mean in the last stanza? Who are the children? Why is this significant?

2.    What parts of the poem are “American?” Who might he be talking about when he says, “Only a few people got all the money in this world?” Who are the ones who “count their pennies?”

References:

Baca, J. S.. "Biography." 19 April 2007 <http://www.jimmysantiagobaca.com/>.

“Unsettling America”: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry. Ed. Maria Mazziotti Gillman and Jennifer Gillman, Penquin Books, USA, 1994. Introduction & Performing 51.