"I was institutionalized from age five to thirty years, first in an orphanage and then in prison. I kept running away and escaping and escaping and escaping . . . I had tried to escape so many times. When I got to prison I refused to work; I wanted to learn—I wanted an education. I was ready to give my life for an education…"
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On what eventually lead him to poetry in “An Interview with Poet, Teacher, and Activist Jimmy Santiago Baca” in the Kenyon Review (2017 Aug 8)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jimmy_Santiago_Baca
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Jimmy Santiago Baca
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