Working in the Dark
Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio

Writings by Jimmy Santiago Baca
Illustrated by Adan Hernandez

Border Regional Library Association,
Southwest Book Award, 1993 

from "The Language of Life"
PBS Poetry Series with Bill Moyers
WNET, New York

Author Jimmy Santiago Baca was raised in an orphanage and took to the streets at age eleven, after which this amazing young Chicano taught himself to read and write. His statement, "I think that the work I do is done in the dark," encompasses many meanings central to his preoccupation with the night. He draws from his unconscious and the fertile ground of dreams as sources of discovery for his life as a man and as a poet. In this book Baca passionately explores the troubled years of his youth, from which he emerged with heightened awareness of his ethnic identity as a Chicano, his role as a voice for the misunderstood tribal life of the barrio, and his redemptive vocation as a poet. These profound illuminations of ethnic identity and literary creation make exciting and provocative reading.

Jimmy Santiago Baca is the author of several books of poetry. His American Book Award for poetry in 1988 and his National Endowment for the Arts Hispanic Heritage Award in 1989 show the esteem in which his work is held.