Literacy a lifesaver for New Mexico poet
By Anonymous Friday, October 20, 2006, 12:08 AM EDT
POWER OF POETRY
"I've thought about how people ask me how literacy saved my life," Baca said from his home in Albuquerque, N.M. "But every day I get up and I realize how literacy is saving my life.
"I worry about my kids in school, how I'm going to pay the electric bill, the war in Iraq, drug addiction. Then I sit down to write and I'm absorbed by this strange and mysterious alchemy that takes place, and I come out of my office as if Christmas has come and left. I don't know if writers are supposed to feel that, but I do."
People are naturally going to ask Baca to talk about how literacy saved his life. Born in Santa Fe, N.M., he grew up hard in Albuquerque: Abandoned by his parents when he was 2, a runaway from an orphanage at 13, he was incarcerated for drugs at 21, functionally illiterate. He spent five rugged, violence-studded years behind bars - at first, and for a long while, blinded by rage. But while in prison, he taught himself to read and to write, and then to write poetry.
His first book was published in 1978. Numerous volumes of poetry, short-story collections and a memoir ("A Place to Stand") followed, as have a slew of awards, including, in 1988, an American Book Award for two extended poems published as "Martin & Meditations on the South Valley." He earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of New Mexico 1984 and a doctorate in literature in 1992.
Baca, 54, was one of the featured writers appearing at the first San Diego City College International Book Fair, held Oct. 13 and 14. Through the years, he's spent a lot of time around the city, off and on.
"The thing I miss more than anything is getting up early and seeing San Diego come alive," he said. "I did everything: worked in the zoo, worked at the ocean, dumped trash, was a courier to Tijuana and back - I brought a lot of good drugs into San Diego. I was a young kid, and it was a wild life. I didn't realize the consequences of it."
Baca is enthusiastic about the multicultural aspect of the book fair. It fits right in with his vision of the city.
"Believe me," he said, "there are so many independent thinkers in San Diego; I've found frontera art to be some of the best in the country. And the last time I was here, the crowds everywhere I was reading were (standing room only). Now, in L.A. that may be true in a public library, but in San Diego people are very alert and aware."
Baca does more than simply appear at readings around the country. He is actively involved in promoting literacy programs, especially in prisons, where for many years he has conducted workshops; last year, he created Cedar Tree Inc. to further that vision. He's currently at work on a three-hour prison-literacy project for National Public Radio.
That's in addition, of course, to his writing. A few months ago, he finished a novel, which he put away "to let it simmer."
"In the next two weeks I'll jump on it again," he said. "It's amazing how many mistakes I make."
Within the next year, New Directions will publish a new book of his poetry, as well as a bilingual edition of his collected poems, to be sold in every Spanish-speaking country in the world.
Baca doesn't see himself as part of the slam/instant poetry movement. The problem, he said, is the genre's speed, which does not appeal to him. It seems a lot of his writing takes place in a cabin he owns about an hour and a half north of Santa Fe. He goes there often.
"I'll spend two weeks, alone, on a poem," he said. "A poem is not a popularity contest. You can tell when a poem has been worked on in solitude. It has a feel to it, like holding a warm rock in the snow."
While no slammer, Baca is known as a dynamic presenter of his own work. And apparently the dynamism works both ways.
"I'm always surprised by the people I meet at the readings," he said. "I may find myself really upset and nervous and strained about the war, maybe, or the economy. Then I go do a reading in a community and meet someone who wants to volunteer in a literacy program. I'm continually sustained; they come up and say, 'Can I help you?' It's like there's someone orchestrating this whole magical theater."
