For Immediate Release

February 20, 2002
Contact: Vivek Jain (434) 243-1965
Edmund Etheridge (434) 243-1978

Poet and Author Jimmy Santiago Baca
to Speak to Students and Community

8 p.m. Friday, March 22
Wilson Hall, UVa

Charlottesville, VA (February 20, 2002) -- The Eighth Annual Virginia Festival of the Book will host the nationally renowned poet Jimmy Santiago Baca, who will share his personal story of transformation with students and members of the Charlottesville community to inaugurate the University of Virginia's Hispanic Awareness Week. Baca will appear at UVa's Wilson Hall (Room 402) at 8 p.m. on Friday, March 22, 2002.

Author of A Place to Stand, Healing Earthquakes and several poetry collections, Baca is the recipient of numerous accolades including the Pushcart Prize and American Book Award. An American Chicano with Apache roots, his "poet of the people" vision has some critics calling him the "heir to Pablo Neruda."

At the age of 21, Baca was illiterate and sentenced to prison for selling drugs. Five years later, he emerged from prison with a passion for reading and writing poetry. His recently published memoir, A Place to Stand, is a vivid portrait of life inside a maximum-security prison and an affirmation of one man's spirit in overcoming the most brutal conditions through poetry.

Baca's visit is co-sponsored by the University of Virginia's newly inaugurated International Residential College and VABook!. Additional support comes from the Arts and Science Council, the Cultural Programming Board, the English Department, Latin American Studies Program, the Dean of Students, the Student Life Office and President Casteen's Office. The event's sponsors anticipate that this story of a man who found a constructive alternative to a life of crime will greatly impact the University and community -- inspiring hope in children and troubled youth especially.

As Baca remarks, "I am a witness, not a victim . . . . My role as a witness is to give voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless, of which I am one."

While in Charlottesville, Baca will visit University classes, conduct a poetry workshop at the International Residential College and help launching Hispanic American Awareness Week at UVa. For more information, please visit the Festival's website, www.vabook.org or the University's Hispanic/Latino and Latin American events page, www.virginia.edu/deanofstudents/eventos.html.

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