The Power of Life-Changing Effects with Jimmy Santiago Baca
It takes being completely broken in order to come back from the unthinkable, stronger than before. Jimmy Santiago Baca, the writer of A Place to Stand, shares his story of his life which proves to everyone that no matter how bad you have it, someone has it worse. Baca transitions throughout his whole book and is an exact image of what a survivor is but in his case no one saved his life literally. Figuratively, poetry was his saving grace. Baca pens, “I began to compose sentimental poems. I discovered that good and bad experiences had hibernated in me, and when they awoke they did so without warning and with the velocity of a sniper bullet, making me shake and choke up” (Baca 189).
…show more content…
This rebellious action was a result from not being allowed to return to school so Baca would be able to read and write. He is then told by Captain (Mad Dog) Madril, “This committee cannot in good faith recommend school at the present time. Prisoner is assigned field duty for six months. Request for schooling will be considered at that point” (Baca 163). Baca was denied for education privileges because he was said to be, “- a menace to society,” (Baca 162) by a black sergeant. When assigned to the hole, he had the opportunity to get away from everything on the outside. The hole has a hold over Baca’s mind and brings back the memories to when he was a child and happy. In his poem, “I am Offering this Poem” Baca’s tone to his audience is all about poetry bringing comfort, warmth and protection. He writes, “Keep it, treasure this as you would if you were lost, needing direction, in the wilderness life becomes when mature” (“Offering”). Wanting an education, Baca soon realizes that poetry acts as a map or guide to get away, or finding a place back to somewhere or …show more content…
It is very miserable to witness or know a person who has not had the best upbringing into the world. With no one to give love, reassurance and commitment to them but unfortunately, at the same time, an outsider can only do so much to help. Baca pens about his encounter with Coach Tracy and how he was welcoming Baca into his home to meet his family as a step to adopt him. Baca quickly shut them out even though he liked them, but of course that was a problem in his eyes at the time from everything he had heard by his grandfather. In another one of his poems Baca penciled, “when the walls were built higher, when the water was turned off and the windows painted black. I followed these signs” (“Understands”). His message to his audience is that if change is what is being searched for, no one can help but themselves. Guidance and signs will only be provided by loved ones, teachers, counselors but the hard work is obtained by the one wanting the change to happen. Baca is not a God or magical hero, he is simply an ordinary guy who happened to make a life for himself even through the hardships and struggles that were thrown his way. That is what life is after all. An opportunity to acquire the lessons and obstacles that either make people soar to greatness or settle for what they believe they
Richard Taylor, an American philosopher and author of, “The Meaning of Life” believes you can live a meaningful life as long as you realize your will and are completely involved in it and enjoy it, then you are no longer needed and your life was a successful one. “This is surely the way to look at all of life- at one’s own life, and each day and moment it contains; of the life of a nation; of the species; of the life of the world; and of everything that breathes” (Taylor p 27). He proves this through the ancient myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was sentenced by the Gods to spend an eternity rolling a stone repeatedly to the top of a hill and once it reached the top, it would roll right back down once again. Taylor calls Sisyphus’ life as an “endless pointlessness.” Taylor relates human life to Sisyphus’ life. He believes that both of our lives can have meaning. Taylor asks us to look at Sisyphus’ story in a different way. For example, while the Gods sentenced him to rolling this stone up a hill for an eternity, what if they gave him a “strange and irrational impulse” to roll the stone repeatedly. Now, according to Richard Taylor, Sisyphus’ life would now have meaning and if we were to be as invested as Sisyphus in rolling the stone, then our lives have meaning as well.
Resiliency is one concept that has never been the human races forte. Many things that happen in our current day and age require a great deal of perseverance and resiliency. People often will give in to the problems in their lives and learn to accept them, instead of persevering through them and working out the issues. The fact of the matter is, if you learn to persevere through problems, your life will be a lot more happy and pleasant to live. In Tennessee Williams’ play, “ A Streetcar Named Desire” suggests that you cannot give up on issues; you must be resilient to those issues and persevere to be happy.
The second strong line is: “And it was hate and rage towards abusive teachers that kept me going year after year…with the hope that one day I’d get published, and have a voice, so I could make difference down here in our hearts, and guts,” I said, grabbing hold of my own gut, “where we really live, if we’ve going to live a life worth living!” This strong line made me feel like Victor Villasenor have been through many abusive, bullied, from teachers and friends. However, he created hope in his life to motivate what he loves to do and defending himself through passion
Everyone needs hope to get through hard times. In the book Inside Out and Back Again Written by Thanhha Lai HA is going through hard times in Vietnam. Her country is at war and she sleeps to the sound of bombs. Ha is missing her father who went to war when she was just one and never came back. Ha and her family fled Vietnam and moved to Alabama
Incarnation usually transforms an inmate, but sometimes it's not always for their best interest. Jimmy Santiago Baca, the author of A Place to Stand, did however learn how to transform to better himself and his future for after prison life. While in prison Baca teaches himself how to read and write despite being illiterate from a very young age. By teaching himself how to read and write, Baca transforms his life through his love of poetry. This also helped him survive in jail for the 5 years he was there. His poems “I Am Offering This Poem”, “Who Understands Me but Me”, and “Immigration in Our Own Land” convey multiple messages of character transformation and survival that Jimmy depicts within his prison memoir A Place to Stand.
When individuals face obstacles in life, there is often two ways to respond to those hardships: some people choose to escape from the reality and live in an illusive world. Others choose to fight against the adversities and find a solution to solve the problems. These two ways may lead the individuals to a whole new perception. Those people who decide to escape may find themselves trapped into a worse or even disastrous situation and eventually lose all of their perceptions and hops to the world, and those who choose to fight against the obstacles may find themselves a good solution to the tragic world and turn their hopelessness into hopes. Margaret Laurence in her short story Horses of the Night discusses the idea of how individual’s responses
In order to live a full, "wholehearted" life, we need to gain a better understanding of the true nature of vulnerability. Millions of children have been introduced to vulnerability by author J. D. Salinger. Salinger was vulnerable to rejection, criticism, failing. His novel, I’m sure you know it, “The Catcher in the Rye” was rejected 15 times. One editor tossed it aside as juvenile. Perhaps you remember the book’s last lines: “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you’ll start missing everybody.” Sure Holden Caulfield put up a tough front but the character created by Salinger is endearing and enduring even to this day – in large part because of his vulnerability. So if we want joy, love, and empathy in our lives, we need to let vulnerability into our hea...
Steven Herrick’s 2001 free verse novel The Simple Gift and the 2009 film The Blind Side directed by John Lee Hancock effectively highlight the importance of stability of place, which could offer comfort, security, and validation. This is reflected both Billy and Michael who had negative experiences within their formative contexts and seek belonging elsewhere in an effort to find the comfort and security of a place, showing that connection to place is a significant factor in achieving belonging.
He explains that “I could respond, escape, indulge; embrace or reject earth or the cosmos” (Baca 55). Baca was exploring on an endless journey without any boundaries, in which he could see his past floating around him. He saw his future and what language was doing to him. Baca expresses that “each word steamed with the hot lava juices of my primordial making, and I crawled out of stanzas dripping with birth-blood, reborn and freed from the chaos of my life” (55). Baca was no longer a captive of his own emotions never feeling like a victim of other people’s mockery and intimidation. He was physically in prison but in his poems, he was anywhere that he wanted to be. With the power of words Baca realized he could do anything and soon overcame his fears of
Is it possible to make vital life changes to become a better person at heart? Who’s the one that can help you? The only person that will get you up on your feet is yourself, and you have to believe deeply to make those changes. In this essay there are many main points that are being brought across to explain the problems and wisdom that arose from Baca’s life as an inmate. It talks about how he was grown up into an adult and the tragedies that he had to face in order to become one. Later I fallow steps that lead to the purpose and rhetorical appeals of Baca’s essay. The purpose dealt with the cause and effect piece and problem/ solution structure.
Imagine a camp where having the chance to see the ones that were significant in life was banned. Imagine a world where on a daily basis ,people got tortured in disturbing, immoral ways right in front of many viewing eyes from young to old. Image a camp where loved one’s life’s got stolen from them for all the wrong reasons. Strength and health was no longer an obstacle that had to be dealt with. The only thing left to do was to stride for something that could keep you going for the long run. What would happen then? Something new begins to grow. Something so powerful that it could possibly outshine strength and health. Hope. Hope is something that could get you farther than strength and health.
book remains a true testimony to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit.
Gonzales, Laurence. Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why: True Stories of Miraculous Endurance and Sudden Death. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2003. Print.
Similar to Thoreau, Baca uses imagery to connect and transpose his audience into the moments that he experiences in order to conjure feelings and emotion. The second stanza of the poem provides a vivid description of Baca’s surroundings. Describing the prison yard at length emphasis the entrapment the prisoners feel, including himself. His long poetic phrases serve to connect the audience to the feelings that he experiences in that moment. He employment of this method is identical to Thoreau and the outcome is the same. Baca also enhances his imagery and projection of emotion through the use of similes. In the first stanza of the poem, Baca describes the state of the prison as, “ A wall of wind crashes against, / windows clunk against, iron frames
Death is something that causes fear in many peoples lives. People will typically try to avoid the conversation of death at all cost. The word itself tends to freak people out. The thought of death is far beyond any living person’s grasp. When people that are living think about the concept of death, their minds go to many different places. Death is a thing that causes pain in peoples lives, but can also be a blessing.