Healing Earthquakes: Poems

Who is this Jimmy Santiago Baca, this orphaned gangster, jailbird, vata loco, this poet? Baca, who didn't learn to read and write until he was in prison, has created in Healing Earthquakes a work worthy of Whitman, Milton or Dante. The emotional direction for most of this epic poem is downward. He starts at a gentle incline that subtly becomes steeper as he paints pictures of his impoverished but proud background as a Mexican/Indian kid suffering the prejudices around him. Healing Earthquakes then goes deeper into the most magical images of his passionate love to Lisana. But Lisana leaves and Baca walks alone with emptiness and sorrow. By now he is approaching the center of the earth, the First Mother, the heart of the earthquake. His images and rhythm here are black and beautifully angry. Just when the mood of filth and darkness seems inescapable Baca bursts out into the sunlight with "... but I'll sing in the fields, roads, on stages/at every community center and college/and transform your hurt, my hurt, their hurt/into that dream of peace you believed in/... empower(ing)/people who will join me in this dream of yours/to make a more peaceful world. I will!" Healing Earthquakes is not for the faint of heart but if you stay with it, it will open your heart.

Jimmy Santiago Baca's `Healing Earthquakes' stands apart from much of the poetry published today. If you are looking for well-ordered lines with an academic feel, this is not it. Baca's free form is reminiscent of Whitman or Neruda, but he goes beyond Whitman, beyond Neruda. Baca exposes and rips apart the very heart and soul of his protagonist, allows him to suffer unbearably, and then reveals him as a fuller, more complex, yet still flawed human being. Imagery and metaphor are used liberally. No subject is taboo. Baca explores race, language, social issues, sex, philosophy, work, hate, pain, and love, not from a theoretical standpoint, but from someone who has been there. Every line has the ring of truth because Baca is writing about what he knows. While the poem may be somewhat autobiographical, almost every page has something that forces the reader to stop and think, stop and feel for a moment, because the experiences expressed are universal. The verses contain their own internal logic and meter. Open the book anywhere and read aloud. You will find them carefully crafted.This is not a work one reads and forgets easily. Only during my second reading did I begin to understand some of the nuances, the subtleties, of the human psyche that Baca portrays. Step outside of the mundane and read `Healing Earthquakes;' you will not be disappointed.