Black Mesa Poems (New Directions Paperbook) [Paperback]

Jimmy Santiago Baca (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The narrator of these poems lives in an adobe house built from tiles "wagon'd to Black Mesa / one hundred fifty years ago." Baca ( Mart inaccent, yes?/yes/pk & Meditations on the South Valley ) draws directly for pk material from the small New Mexico town where he was born, telling of knife fights, the birth of children and animals, buying a lime-green patio set. He creates rituals from small gestures, expanding to mythic significance a boy who prefers red chile peppers, but eats the green his grandmother chooses. Few poets have paid such close attention to the passing seasons, particularly winter's harshness; although he finds this causes the death of animals, pk Baca also insists that "Nature was not all that cruel." Writing in short, crisp, rhythmic lines, Baca transfigures a seemingly barren landscape.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Accountability
As Children Know
At Night
Bedtime Story To The Boys
Bells
A Better Life
Birthing Work
Black Mesa
Child Of The Sun-gabriel's Birth (sun Prayer)
Choices
Custom
A Daily Joy To Be Alive
Day's Blood
Drawing Light
Dream Come Early
Dream Instructions
Dust-bowl Memory
El Sapo
Fall
Family Ties
A Field Of Clover
From Violence To Peace
A God Loosened
God's Coming
A Good Day
Green Chile
Hitchhiker
I Am Here
Influences
Into Death Bravely
Invasions
Invasions
Jaguar Head
Knowing The Snow Another Way
Knowing When
Leaps
Llano Vaqueros
Main Character
Matanza To Welcome Spring
Mi Tio Baca El Poeta De Socorro
News
Old Man
Old Woman
On Blood And Bone
The Other Side Of The Mountain
Perfecto Flores
Personal Prayers
Picking Pinons
Praise
Roots
Sanctuary
September
Since You've Come
Spring
Sweet Revenge
Tomas Lucero
Too Much Of A Good Thing
Toward The Light
Voz De La Gente
What Could Have Been And What Is
What We Don't Tell The Children
What's Real And What's Not
Wind
Wishes
Work We Hate And Dreams We Love
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 126 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation; First Edition edition (November 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811211029
• ISBN-13: 978-0811211024
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #487,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Outstanding Book by a Great Poet, October 20, 1997

By 

[e-mail] (Sebastopol, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Mesa Poems (New Directions Paperbook) (Paperback)

This work focuses on Baca's deep connection to his homeland of New Mexico. The poems show a profound understanding of the connections which have developed between the rugged landscape and the people who inhabit it. Baca has found a trove of metaphors for life and living in that environment, yet never succumbs to flaccid sentimentality in his poems. This book has a very special quality: it is accessible to every fan and student of poetry---indeed, it often speaks to you seemingly without your having to read it.