The Face

About the Book:

In this haunting meditation, interspersed with beautiful poems, Jimmy Santiago Baca sees the wounds of his past in his passionate face. He reflects on his own relationship with the face that others see -- the very face that he, at times, has difficulty recognizing. His journey from abandonment, to incarceration, to stardom as a world-famous poet, is engraved in his expressions, and in what is hidden behind them. With echoes of Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda, Baca's words speak more largely for a people alienated by history, in search of their own recognizable faces. The Face is the record of a lasting quest for self-recognition by the nation's preeminent Chicano and Native American poet.

About the Author:

Jimmy Santiago Baca is an award-winning poet, known internationally for his lyrical, politically charged verse. Of Apache and Chicano ancestry, at the age of twenty-one he was convicted on drug charges and spent six and a half years in prison, where he found his voice as a poet through correspondence with Denise Levertov. His many books include Black Mesa Poems (1995) and A Place to Stand (2001). He also wrote the screenplay for the film Blood In, Blood Out (1993).