Engaged Mindfulness | A Poem from Jimmy Santiago Baca

Jimmy Santiago Baca is an award-winning American poet and writer of Chicano descent, and this summer he’ll be coming up to SMC to co–lead the Engaged Mindfulness Retreat — Not Turning Away. Here, we’re honored to share an excerpt from the “Book V: Rebirth” section of Jimmy’s 2001 book of poems titled Healing Earthquakes.

Shambhala Mountain Center hosts Engaged Mindfulness Retreat – Not Turning Away with Acharya Fleet Maull, Rhonda Magee and Jimmy Santiago Baca, June 16–20, 2017—click here to learn more

About the Author

Jimmy Santiago Baca is an award-winning American poet and writer of Chicano descent. While serving a five-year sentence in a maximum security prison, he learned to read and began to turn his life around, eventually emerging as a prolific artist of the spoken and written word. He received the American Book award and international acclaim for his semi-autobiographical minor epic in verse, Martin & Meditations on the South Valley. He also won the the prestigious International Prize for his memoir, A Place to Stand, which chronicles his troubled New Mexico upbringing amidst poverty, racism, alcoholism and violence and the five-year jail-stint that brought about his personal transformation, now the subject of a recently release documentary of the same title.