Delivering Flowers of Ideas

My house is full full full of books. Why did I need another? But I did, gentle reader. (Picked that up from Ms. Manners or is it Miss Manners? I love her. She's so sensible. She's not in the least bit snotty ... unless someone has done something very small and unforgiveable.)

Yes, I did. Had to get Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio by Jimmy Santiago Baca. I got it at Black Oaks in Berkeley, CA. (Great bookstore!) It was first published in 1992.

Jimmy Santiago Baca is a wonderful writer. If you don't know him, introduce yourself to him. He has many books of poems out.


His memoir called A Place to Stand is intense and deeply interesting and full of warmth ... of rich red blood flowing through the brain and other vital organs.

Here's an excerpt from Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio:

We must think majestically, be cured of our theoretical anemia. We are a people who think in metaphor. It is our way of seeing, our way of giving gifts to each other. We must not be sucked into bloodless, dialectical, theorizing skirmishes. Without metaphor, our thoughts leak away through the holes in the roof of our hypothesis.

We must create passageways among the islands as the Aztecs did, delivering flowers of ideas to each other.

By the way ... in case you were wondering ... I do NOT know any of these authors that I write about. If I know someone personally, I will add a disclosure.