Singing at the Gates

Book excerpt: “This fiery retrospective collection” of poetry by the acclaimed Chicano-American author of A Place to Stand is “warm and furious...righteous and prayerful” (Booklist). Award-winning writer Jimmy Santiago Baca is lauded for his talent in weaving personal and political threads to create a pertinent and poignant narrative. He addresses universal issues with passion, grace, and vivid sensory detail. Singing at the Gates is a collection of Baca’s work stretching across four decades—poems that revitalize the national dialogue: raging against war and imprisonment, celebrating family and the bonds of friendship, heightening appreciation for and consciousness of the environment. A career-spanning selection, it includes poems drawn from Baca’s first chapbook, letters he wrote from prison to a woman named Mariposa, and recent meditations on the significance of breaking through oppression. “A poet whose voice, brutal and tender, is unique in America.”—The Nation