The Furious Spinner

I am reading the most amazing book by Jimmy Santiago Baca called Healing Earthquakes: A love story in poems. It is moving and beautiful. I was introduced to Baca about fifteen years ago, give or take. After enduring and surviving a harrowing childhood, Baca went to a maximum security prison and discovered poetry and his voice: He came out of a prison as a writer. (Baca is one of the authors I am interviewing for my new website, so I'll talk about him more in depth then.)

I have loved Baca's work for years. I somehow missed this book, so reading it now is such a treat and a revelation. As I'm trying to learn to live in this world and find community and "real life," Baca articulates what I'm feeling, what I've been unable to articulate. And our backgrounds could hardly be more different. But that is what great poets—great writers—are able to do.

Today I read a couple of pages to my father and it left him speechless, choked up.

Here's a bit of what I read to him:

"My own intimate moments are of those men I've known
men who can't express themselves
but don't hesitate to dive from bridges
to save a drowning child or woman
and yet can't speak a word
on behalf of themselves.
Men who work day and night
accustom themselves to four hours' sleep a night
for years
without complaint
and can't utter a feeling."

I recommend this book highly. It's not like anything else you have ever read. You cannot skim it. You cannot read it with the television on, the radio, the stereo. You can read it while the hummingbirds buzz around the feeder, the snow falls on the tall grass as misty rain, the children laugh in the playground across the street, and the new leaves unfold from the Old Oak on the corner.

May You Read in Beauty! 0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.