MIDLAND On November 16-18, Midland College will host three events featuring award-winning American poet and writer Jimmy Santiago Baca. All events are free; reservations are not required.
On the afternoon, Nov. 16, and Thursday, Nov. 17, Baca will give lectures about his life that included learning to read as a young adult while serving a five-year sentence in a maximum-security prison. Today, Baca is a prolific artist of the spoken and written word and has won numerous awards for his works.
The Wednesday afternoon, November 16, lecture is from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. and will be held at the MC main campus in the Allison Fine Arts Building Wagner & Brown Auditorium. The Thursday evening presentation will be held at the Midland College Cogdell Learning Center from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
From 9 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Nov. 18, Baca will hold a writer’s workshop on the main MC campus in the Marie Hall Academic Building Room 101.
Baca is a winner of the prestigious International Award for his memoir, A Place to Stand, the story of which is now also a documentary by the same title. His semi-autobiographical novel in verse, Martin and Meditations on the South Valley (1987) received the 1988 Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award. He also received a Pushcart Prize and the Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature. In 2006, he was awarded the Cornelius P. Turner Award, which honors GED graduates who have made “outstanding contributions” in areas such as education, justice and social welfare.
In 2004, Baca launched Cedar Tree, a literary nonprofit organization designed to provide writing workshops, training and outreach programs for at-risk youth, prisoners, ex-prisoners and disadvantaged communities.
Baca holds a bachelor of arts degree in English and an honorary Ph.D. in literature from the University of New Mexico.
