Jimmy Santiago Baca—A Place to Stand

Jimmy Santiago Baca—A Place to Stand

“And suddenly I began to forgive them for what they had done or had not done. I forgave myself for all my mistakes and for all I had done to hurt others. I forgave the world for how it had treated us…I was innocent and pure. I was that child, free to begin life over and to make my life one they would all bless and be proud of. I was truly free at last.

The novel begins in prison and ends with the birth of Baca’s son. The opening scene struck me later in the novel, after the cycle of violence and pain that Baca went through, because this engulfed his entire family. Thinking about the way that pain spread through the family makes it seem as if it were a genetic mutation, and that by opening the novel with a visit to his father in the drunk tank, Baca was showing us the hereditary nature of violence, that he had no choice because he was baptized into it. The way that Baca describes the events in his life was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You could see how each event would lead him to jail and to pain, yet we were just as he was powerless to stop it. He describes all of this in terms of sickness. And it is. I was particularly terrified but interested in the idea of contagion in this novel; the way one thing inevitably leads to another, infecting everything. What was amazing is that Baca chose to confront all of this. When he chose to be the witness, he chose to be the sole architect of his destiny. But refusing not to see, he gained power, and emboldened, he was able to change his life. This was especially poiniant because of all the time that Baca spent in hiding. Under the bed, in Jail, with drugs…the moment that Baca chose not to hide was the moment he decided to be an adult. Several times in this novel, Baba states that he does not feel free; his violent upbringing, lack of education, and financial stability unhinge his life. Even when he is finally released from prison, he repeatedly says that he does not feel free at all. Not until the very end after the birth of his son and seeing his family again. It is as if in order to wipe the slate clean, he has to face it anew.

“I culled poetry from odors, sounds, faces, and ordinary events occurring around me. Breezes bulged me as if I were cloth; sounds nicked their marks on my nerves; objects made impressions on my sight as if in clay. There, in the soft language, life centered and ground itself in me and I was flowing with the grain of the universe. Language placed my life experiences in a new context, freeing me for the moment to become with air as air, with clouds as clouds, from which new associations arose to engage me in present life in a more purposeful way. ”

That these words could come from a man so beat down is amazing. The beauty of his writing, even amidst the darkest points in this memoir was a pleasure to read. It showed the type of man that Baca truly was and is, even during the times when he himself did not know it. Baca may have thought he was destined to be an outsider, but he was destined to be a poet. In this he succeeded and became a free man.