Once again, just like in Albuquerque at the NADE conference, you have made a huge impact.    I saw the way those kids responded to you and listened to you today.  You have made a difference to them, whether they know it now or discover it years from now.  Your impact comes from your warmth, your humor, your articulateness, and your credibility through your life experiences.
You’ve given me a glimpse of some creative energy that I’d like to tap into.  Thank you for that.  I liked what you said about writers block.  Thanks for that as well.  We humans (and other creatures)  have much to share with each other, and I thank you for that message.  
L. S.
Rogue Community College

Thank you for giving me my wings back. I lost them some time ago, but reading your work has given me strength to, as you do, follow my own path. My wings are starting to flap again. And I am beginning to breathe again. Live again. Your courage gives me courage. For that, I will always be grateful.
G. J.

I teach 9th grade English at a high school in Long Beach, California. Several years ago I came upon "I am offering the poem" and have used it in my poetry unit ever since.
The neighborhoods where our students live are among the most violent in the country. Many of our kids gravitate towards the gang life or simply fade into the background, hoping no one will notice them.
This poem, along with Baca's personal history, has been an invaluable "hook" to help my kids experience the freedom of expressing their feelings in a safe, intelligent way. Every year I am amazed at their honesty and candor.
So, let me say how very grateful I am to have found this poetry. Thanks.
K. D.
Teacher

Our particular situation is concerned with the plight of second-language learners in the rural communities of the San Joaquin Valley.  Time and time again, it has come to our attention the desperate needs of our students.  Many of our students hate reading.  They cannot connect to literature.  They cannot write or at least they have not been given the inspiration to tell their stories.  While we are able to recognize their difficulties, we are only capable of sympathizing with their situation and we are unable to do so, because we are a bunch of privileged middle class idiots who did everything by the book high school, college, career.  We understood the school game and played it well.  Our kids do not have any clues as to how to play the game and frankly they don’t give a rat’s ass. However, recently, we have shared your writing with them and they genuinely seemed consumed by it.  The reason being you wrote their story.  They saw themselves in you.  Your writing is able to draw an emotional response from them yet they do not have the words to explain what that response is all they know is that they connect and are acutely aware of the powerful impact it has on their soul.
J. L. and D. B

I have a young man in my English II and III classes who claims to have never read a book or even a chapter out of a book who is now profusely reading, A Place to Stand.  It is an amazing transformation to watch a student connect with a writer; much less a student who has flunked English more times than he can count and who claims to have never read a book. 
 I believe this is a compliment to you, sir, for writing what he calls "a real book."  He has somehow connected to literature through you; a personal epiphany of which has opened his world to the written word.   He has even asked me to order him another book from your extensive writing and has now seen that you have one forthcoming.   He is going to send the book that he has read to another friend of his. 
Thanks for your words, the inspiration, and the connection. 
L. K.
Teacher
Sabina, Texas

I am a returning soldier from Iraq and I was also wounded in Iraq and I almost lost my leg. I have been in the hospital for a year almost and I just got out so in away I know what its like to be stuck somewhere. When I was reading your book [A Place to Stand] there was a part in your book when you almost killed that guy but you did not because you thought that if you did you could not write poetry if you could not respect life. Well I agree with you because I saw so much death over in Iraq its hard for me to write about it. I try, but I keep getting to involved with the details because it is all to vivid and I can remember every detail of every fire fight I was in. I just wanted to know if writing can ever find me again. I want to write about the war so bad because I feel like screaming my stories to everybody just so I can feel better but I end up writing nonsense on paper with jumbled thoughts (much like this email which I hope you some how you will read). Well I hope that you can send me an email or something maybe you can help me because I felt like you of all people know how frustrating it is to have all your thoughts and no where to put them.  Thanks very much.
Anonymous

I really appreciate your history, your candor, your struggle, your pain. Your journey has given you something truly unique to offer the world, and I have been blessed by the gifts you possess. I look forward to reading more from you.
M. B,
Akron, Ohio

I work with young adults at an independent day school.  Most of the students that I serve as a surrogate mother to at my school would really appreciate your work.  I was listening to you read some of your poetry on-line through some place in Chicago, and I heard you mention that you were doing some work with [an elementary school here].  Some of the students that I work with here are formerly from [there].  I was wondering if you are still doing this. I'm wondering if you ever have time to serve as a mentor to promising young students whom you would definitely have a positive influence over. 
J. H.
Director of Multicultural Outreach

I have a creole kid, a rough kid from a rough family in Belize City in my class. Belize City is like a DMZ. You have been helping me to get to this kid. He came here to this school as a choice to get away from the crowd he ran with up in BZ. He is a great kid, a smart kid. All his teachers see it in him, but he just doesn't know it yet cause he has been beat down by life.
I was telling him and the class your story today and this kid was hooked like a fish. Here was someone he could relate to! You could see the cogs turning in his head. I am hooking him up with your poetry and who knows where it could go. He is a smart kid who really really wants to change.
I just want to thank you for helping me find a way. I really appreciate it and just wanted to say thanks.
P. P.
High school teacher
Belmopan, Belize, Central America.

I wanted to take this time to tell you how much I appreciate your attention to M. He has been through so much in his young life.
I think you allowed [my son] to hope and you showed him a path and more important, a noble purpose. He has always been without a purpose, just nervous energy knowing that things were happening for him but not trusting it somehow.
Mr, Baca, I believe in God and prayer and have always kept M. in my prayers in hopes that someone like you would see him, hear him, and help guide him.
Bless you for the smile in his heart and eyes today that only a mother or parent hopes that they will see in their child. Bless you for the tears he is able to shed without anger, and the purpose you have inspired in him. You know how that feels, and bless you for sharing it with my wonderful son. Through his writings I can see a child grow into a man, and because of you, a good man.
C. L.

I just wanted to say thank you for all that you have given to the raza.
You gave me hopes that one day I can make it and that one day the world
Would come to know my name... I am proud to be from Nuevo Mejico
Because of your poetry I pushed myself to write as often as possible
R. M.

Greetings! I teach Adult Basic Education and GED classes to adults in homeless shelters and treatment facilities throughout the city of Springfield, MA. I have been bringing in your poems and interviews you have given that are posted on your web site, and read them together with my students. They have been extremely inspired and transformed by your words, images and life stories. Many of my students are African-American and Hispanic men who have been through the prison system and your words rip open their hearts like wild fire.
A. A.
GED Instructor

Honestly, I think the workshop participants got lucky.  Just because Jimmy can write in a way that grabs us and throws us to the ground doesn't necessarily mean he can see what's missing, what can be tightened, where to things should be let loose in somebody else's writing AND be encouraging at the same time.....but he can.  he's startlingly good at it.  and he's kind enough to give each writer in the workshop something positive to hold onto…. His first assignment got everybody jumping in the deep end. 
K.

I'm 16 years old and I Live in Willows, CA. Today I got a letter from my boyfriend. He is 17 years old and lives here in Willows. He is right now in the Juvenile Hall here in Willows, and I got a letter from him that said he met you. He told me that you liked his drawings and pictures that he had, and that you would like to have one of them in your book. Well Mr. Baca, I just wanted to say thank you, because I know now that [my boyfriend] is very happy to hear that you wanted his drawing in one of your books. I always knew that he had talent and that he could become somebody better. I always stand by his side telling him that he could become an artist…. and make better choices in life.
I. P.

Thank you for the very inspiring presentation you made to the inmates here in this detention center Thursday. The DWI men were pretty pumped, especially with your offer of a scholarship to an inmate right there on the spur of the moment! These guys like to see someone put his money where his mouth is--it's a big change for them. I've heard the scholarship recipient wants to be in criminal justice.
S. W., LISW

Te quiero agradescer el tiempo que compartetes con los inmates de Tierra Amarilla (Detention Center) last week.  It had been my hope that you would get wind of our efforts of the Community College (Northern) and the Detention Center to develop this [GED] initiative to try to help these men and women with "hope" for something beyond life behind those walls. 
But your message of "hope through education" and your presence as one who understands their plight/path will, I believe, make all the difference in the world to the success of this initiative...so for that I am eternally grateful to you.  The wisdom you have developed from your lessons has great, great value...to many.
 I wanted to sincerely thank you for taking time, from what appears to be your very busy schedule, to talk with them in such a human, kind, funny & sensitive way. I was especially touched by your statement when in your morning session one inmate talked about that "inevitable" issue that always comes up when Latinos come together, that we "hold each other back with our envidia"...I had never heard your take on it and it was really wonderful...letting them know that it's okay to be envidiosos of what others have when they have nothing, by acknowledging that it is not necessarily a bad thing -- IF -- they use that energy to help them "step up" and want more for themselves...my sense was that it was a really validating and powerful message. 
F. C.
Dean
Northern New Mexico College

Your description about the life in prison really shook me. I was wondering if you know how I as a complete outsider could help people in prison who go through the similar journey as you have?
To me it is shocking how the prison system here in the US can be expected to make a better society. In Finland the prison is literally an institution where people are rehabilitated back to society. It is basically a home where the people are given a chance to live "normally" and the goal is to give them back the self-esteem and respect, in order for them to be able to respect others in the real society. I wish I could help people to hold on to hope.
M. W.
Peekskill, New York
(formerly of Finland)

I am from Taos Pueblo. My bro who is in Federal Prison introduced me to your book "A Place to Stand." Your writing was inspiring 2 me. Even more so cuz my bro could relate. He was kind of "hardened" I guess you could say when he went in, but your writing and the writing of other brothers locked up have helped him to look a little deeper inside of himself.
I love my bro so much and I see the potential in him. I feel for brothers, sisters, and youth who are incarcerated. My hope is that they find themselves, their true selves.
This is my outlook on Life. "Every being, everything, every moment like the flap of a bird's wing that enters our path of life is for a reason, a season, or a lifetime becuz every lesson is a blessin." So this is an idea I have: I have a few of the addresses of brothers in prison. I would like to ask them to spread the word to writers and artists interested in swapping writings with other brothers in prison. I am thinking about a prison writing swap that will include men, women, and youth who are incarcerated.
I am just wondering what you think and if you have ideas cuz you been there, done that and came out a stronger man standing his ground.
S. B.

Some time ago, my classes saw the TV411 episode featuring your 'power of language' segment. 
Now, I have new students here in Giddings State School, so I am showing the same episode, but to new sets of eyes.
You should know how powerfully your story affects troubled youth.  It is a reference point that lasts longer than any other technique I have attempted to use.
Thanks for doing what you do.
G. M.

I was present at the NADE conference and heard you at both the open session and the follow-up. Your story is a very inspiring and motivating story. One that I relate to from the background of having been put down often in the early years.
I am in my 37th year here at Campbellsville University (a four year Baptist School.) Our school has always worked to help students who need a chance. We loose many of them, however you never know which one will be the successful one. Therefore, we work very hard at given help and building self-confidence to hope for success.
We have a program we call Writing, Engaging, Learning (WEL) and recognize the importance writing has in all walks of life.
Well just a note to say THANK YOU and keep up the good work.
A.
Teacher

I have a childhood history similar to yours.  It has been a long road to get here--now I have a graduate degree from Boston University and am a psychiatric social worker.  Who would have thought that it could happen?  I identified with your understanding and expression of compassion as a child/adolescent, as an institutionalized person. 
It is so wonderful to know that you have transformed your pain into an expressive form that heals, I am sure, yourself and others.  Your anger, pain, outrage, love of life and brutal honesty compel me to read your work further. 
Thank you for showing me once again that there is a life of happiness beyond the pain and loneliness.
F. A.

[Your writing] is an inspiration because it makes me realize what strength there is in the world, what resolve some people have to make good, to keep surviving, when everyone else tells them that they can’t. Though for entirely different reasons and at entirely different levels, I have felt loneliness and despair, and your story is inspiring that times will get better, that everyone lives for a reason, that the clocks will keep ticking and the sun will keep rising and setting, even as you bite your lip to keep from crying or stay in your bed for days, losing track of the time.
Your book makes me want to be a poet and live through poetry more than ever before. But it also renews my desire to be an activist, to expose this system for how corrupt it is, and to change it for the better.
I wanted you to know how you have inspired me to get more involved in the fight for a more just system—I am not sure how I will do it yet, but I am going to be involved.
L. J.
Chicago

I am a 22-year old Chicano from San Antonio, Tejas. Coming from a lower middle class barrio from the moment I learned to write I caught the writing bug. Over the course of several years I could not escape the pressures of drugs and gangs feeling I had to belong to make it. All the while my father (un-known to me at the time)was a community gang counselor and ex-gang member organizing basketball tournaments to keep kids from killing each other. At the age of 17 I finally had enough and decided to take stage-acting lessons and join a community theatre group in the barrio to keep away from trouble which led to my employment at the Guadalupe Cultural arts Center where you once gave a lecture. Thanks to you powerful prose and poetry I am beginning to re-affirm my faith in the power of the written word, which had been lost for some time.
We're it not for the grace of God and for the experience of other Chicanos such as yourself who've shared their experiences in writing, I may not be here typing this e-mail I could just as easily be in Huntsville, Pelican Bay, or Florence learning the hard way.
S. Y.

I am truly inspired by you. especially your ability to stay strong in the most terrible situations.
So I am very proud of myself after finishing your book, since I wouldn’t dare read the crap they give you in high school and just so you know your book has been the 4th book I have ever completed all the way through.
J.
Student
San Diego, CA

I was assigned to read your book" A Place To Stand." I just wanted to say what an incredible book. I read a lot and I have since I was a small child; no book I have read before has made such an impact.
I know also that you have inspired 2 of the guys who are in my group; which they are Hispanic. The 2 guys are not big readers, but they breezed thru your book and enjoyed every minute of it.
S. A.
Student
Chemeketa Community College

I am a passionate career high school teacher and have used many of your poems in my classes with great success…
Currently, I am a teacher in Tacoma, Washington.  [High school] is a high poverty, diverse, urban school.  One student in particular, C. U., was deeply committed to your story.  You all have had a great impact on C. U. and you have validated, inspired and galvanized his own Latino pride.  For the last year I have watched C. U. grow from a mediocre writer to one of the best writers in his class.  I know that this is 100% accredited to the influences you have had on him. 
I thought you might be interested in the introduction C. U. wrote for his Literary Analysis essay on your book.  I am including it here for you. 
“Envision a tree alone in the middle of the desert with a creeping storm headed its way.  Its roots and branches are held strong with pride to endure every bit the thunderous and brutal impact.  That same tree is Jimmy Santiago Baca.  A Place to Stand is a wild rapids ride through waves of poverty and clashes with abandonment.  Although his life is filled with betrayal, love, violence and death, Jimmy still finds hope in even the most desperate of times.  Having had lost his father to alcohol and abandoned by his mother, Jimmy found his passion for poetry in a maximum-security prison.  This tree triumphed the storm.”
 Peace and Inspiration,
A. L.
Teacher
Tacoma, Washington

I do not read and write so well. I too have my own story. My wife gave me your book for my 52nd birthday. I read it in one day. I have never done anything like that before. It is going to make me read more books. Thank you for writing that book. It is going to be a big help in my every day life.
B. M.

Four years ago I taught my first English class.  Most of my students were Latinos and English learners, and I was urged to use texts that could be relevant to my students' lives. 
You were one of the authors I chose. 
I only lasted two years as a teacher. I quit.  It was the hardest job I ever did, and one I could never get my hands around, never make satisfying meaning of for myself.  But meaning comes in surprising ways, and yesterday I received this email that may interest you. 
Dear Ms F.,
Is this email still good?
i was wondering if you remember the author i liked so much. the one who wrote poetry... the mexican guy who had been in and out of prison. i want my girlfriend to read it since i liked it so much. i checked my computer for old essays but i could only find antwone fisher.
i went back on some of my emails to you (hoping to find the author name) and realized how open i was with you. Class seemed to stimulate me... poetry and that.
I dont really have much time for that now... maybe sometimes if im really upset or excited... happy...extremes haha.
i have a 11 month old baby boy and my gf and i have been together for about 2 years now. Just basically looking for work, then maybe eventually school.
Imagine this, Mr. Baca!   Four years pass, and a student sifts through old emails searching for your name!  That is the power of language, of art--and for me, a bit of something to build meaning on as I return to teaching in a few days--to try again.
A. F.

We are eleventh grade students at a high school by Edwards Air Force Base, sixty minutes from Dodger stadium in Southern California.
Keeping your humanity under the conditions you describe is extraordinary. We are impressed and inspired by your educating yourself by reading literature in prison and getting your degree when you left. You are an inspiration to all of us in our efforts to take what life dishes out and make the best of it.
Students and teacher
Palmdale, CA

I wanted to share a little bit of my story with you. The love of my life, S., is serving a 7-year prison sentence in Arizona. He was originally in Yuma but last October he was transferred to Florence.
I just wanted to write to you to let you know that reading your poetry has helped me to better understand some of what S. is going through. He is willing to share his experiences with me but at the same time I feel that he holds back a lot of what he is feeling because he doesn't want me to worry about him. I want to be able to relate to him and what he is going through. I have sent him many of your poems and I told him about how you taught yourself to read and write while in prison. S. is an extremely intelligent man who dropped out of high school very early. He has earned his GED while incarcerated and began to take some college courses. I'm very proud of him. He has even tried his hand at poetry! I wanted to share your story with him because I think you have been incredibly successful, you have been an inspiration to me and hundreds of others, and you represent what can happen when someone never gives up on hope and dreams. Thank you for emerging from all of the ugliness you've experienced with such beauty, wisdom, and grace.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and for adding some light and hope to S.'s life as well as mine.
C. M.
English major
San Diego State University

Today was our first day in The Jimmy Santiago Baca Library, Writing, and Publishing Center.
"It Started
A little state-funded barrack
in the desert, in a prison. A poetry workshop,
an epicenter of originality, companionship,
pain and openness,
For some,
the first time in their life writing,
for others the first time saying openly what they felt,
the first time finding something in themselves,
worthwhile, ugly and beautiful."
It was like that.
Two of the young men wrote me thank you letters. C. T. wrote:
"Coming to this poetry class means a lot to me. It makes me feel like there is somebody that thinks more of us and knows that we can do better in life that what we are doing now. This room takes me out of my mind and body when I am in here working. The people in here help me write, and it makes me feel more like a person."
T. K. wrote:
"The Jimmy Santiago Baca Library makes me want to make a plan so when I walk out of Monroe County Jail I can have something to go for, like I want to go to school. This means so much to me."
They both just wrote.
It was like that.
D. D.
The New York State Literary Center

My cousin’s daughter brought out C-Train Thirteen Mexicans.  She had no idea that I was only sixty days into recovery after thirty years of alcoholism.  I opened up your book to your poem Five.  Amazing coincidence.  Thanks, I will share it tonight with my friends also in recovery.  All the best, thanks for keeping up the fight against injustice.
 D. B.
Denver

…for the past 15 years, I have been a teacher for students with severe behavior problems. I saw their faces in the stories you told. They are junior high students who are housed in an alternative setting due to their aggressive behaviors. They are my kids. Many are headed down the road you traveled. Your book gives me hope that some will make it in life. Thank you.
D. Q.
Teacher

I am writing to you, mainly, because of your book, "A Place to Stand." In so few words, your book hit home. Your life, as you open it up and make it public to your readership, provokes thoughts, ideas, reflections.
 I live in Chicago, Illinois. Last night I was leafing through the Chicago Sun Times, November 11, 2006, and…read your piece on the "importance of self-discovery through literature."
Your article was based on your visit to the Cook County Jail here in Chicago. I support, embrace, and believe that reading, discovery, introspection, self-examination, among other ideas of relating to oneself in this greater life and society are all-important.
I work with inner city youths who come from troubled backgrounds. I have actually bought copies of your book and given them to some of the kids I work with. This is all in the hope that they can learn about another human being's struggle, another human being's human condition, and what it took to overcome many obstacles.
I would like to let you know that your work is greatly appreciated. You are an American voice from a Latino origin that is doing much to awaken Latino youths. It is a process and does take time for some of our youths to understand that there are other roads, other avenues, other options to explore and to not succumb to self adversity, becoming one's worst enemy.
Mr. Santiago-Baca, you are right! With education, self-discovery, one can work on actually make change work, make change possible.
D. R.
Chicago, Illinois

I grew up in a traditional Samoan household but I am deeply drawn to the Hispanic culture through this film, "Bound By Honor." I suppose it was the way the film portrayed the Chicano lifestyle, very similar to Samoans. I have red your poetry, it touches me as much as the film does. It has inspired, encouraged and challenged me to fight with my mind and not with my hands. I have had a troublesome life as a youngster and had learnt it was all about vengeance. I am now learning to channel all my pain and rage into potent words on to a piece of paper—also learning to forgive my enemies trespasses as God has forgiven mine. I am grateful that liberation comes when we seek peace for our endangered mind. I can imagine it was what freed you from the walls of isolation.
Thank-you for being an inspiration.
E. T.
Melbourne, Australia

I can relate going to prison, as I to went in for three years for drugs. It really was an eye opening experience for me because before that I would have never changed my life around for the better. I used to use a lot of drugs and dropped out of school while in tenth grade. Most of my family members were alcoholics with no education. They more or less let themselves go along with our traditions. We grew up poor but we still had each other. I have two younger brothers who I raised, because my mother and father were drinking most of the time. Education was really not important to me until I went to prison, where I received my GED. I can remember all the times I wanted to give up because that was what I did all my life. It’s easy to give up but even harder to make your dreams come true. I never had dreams for myself other then like the rest of my family members.
Your book gives a lot of people hope when they may not ever come to know that good side of life that some take for granted. Our freedom is especially important because even all the money I made from transporting drugs could not buy me happiness or freedom. Some can’t see all the good things we have, until it is taken away. For me being sent to prison changed my life around, as I sit here and think of how far I have came in the small amount of time. My dream is going to come true because I am making it happen and I thank you for sharing your story. It will always keep me going because we are our own worst enemy. We will do anything to keep ourselves from achieving happiness.
No one is going to make things happen for you but you.
E. J.
Tohono O’odham Nation
Student, Pima Community College

I wanted to thank you for the words you shared with the students attending the memoir class.  Many of them have been searching out what it means to be Native and a Native writer. You totally amazed me by speaking to them the very words they needed to hear to help them on their journey as writers.  Your words carry a lot of power and authority not only because they come out of your experience as a Hispano Indio who has been through a lot, but also because they come from the heart.  I think, of all the visiting writers we've had; you have had the most impact on them in the shortest amount of time! 
E.

You have touched me in ways I thought only happened in movies. I have been going through some big bumps in life recently and felt like there was no hope anymore, as if god has abandoned me, given up on me, making me "pay" for all my mistakes in my past. But you gave me a whole different point of view in life.
Anonymous

I wanted to let you know that [a teacher] had several of her students come to the library to tell all of the teachers about life from their point of view, about teachers expecting them to fail, about growing up Chicano in an Anglo system, etc. The best part was when her students expressed how much they are being influenced by A Place to Stand and how your life and writing is helping them to make it...they spoke about how poetry and writing are changing student lives for the better.

Just wanted to let you know…the students are turning their lives around, and giving you credit. 
J.

You are an inspiration to young men like me all across the world. I had a problem with procrastination but you made me realize that life waits for no one. I thank you for what you have become and I speak for many young men who voices are still silent due their fear of success and hardship.
K. M.

Your talk helped a lot, made me think, made me more committed to doing what I can do with my given talents: be dogged about education, helping kids, promoting the power of literacy to transform lives for the better.
I was so moved I sent a note to every teacher at my school that a prominent writer and social activist believed strongly in the power of literacy, so let's keep on keeping on.  Yes, I used what I heard you say to try to encourage other teachers.
L.K.
Chicago high school reading specialist/ teacher and writer

I wanted you to know how much I remember your ability to speak and be heard and have it resonate into my corazon. Because of you, I volunteer inside the facility and not in the visitors room, taken the snickers from former friends, been wholeheartedly supported by family and good friends, made new friends and more importantly felt that I made a small difference in an inmate’s day doing art and listening to music for a couple of hours. You were so right!!! Volunteering is simply the best, better than all the rest!!!
L.

I want to thank you for dissolving one more piss poor image of a Latino man and for putting forth the image of a good person. It helps me get motivated to do my part in raising up our people from the stigmatic cesspool that we sometimes call our culture. The negative that others instill in us to believe that is our culture...when in reality our culture is full, vibrant, respectful, loving, hardworking, and strong. Our true culture has withstood the test of time.
L. M.
Emergency and Disaster Preparedness Officer
US Army Garrison, DPTMS

Today I read your poem at the sentencing hearing for a young man who brought a gun for another person to use to shoot my son and kill another young man.  My son and his friend stopped to help a young woman they knew when she was getting hassled by some guys.  Things just went wrong from there.  Although I did not really do the poem justice since my emotions were so easily brought to the surface, the poem brought tears to the judge's eyes.  The DAs read a copy of El Gato multiple times and really liked the idea of me reading the poem at the hearing. His lawyer asked for a copy of the poem for his client, which I gave him.  I only hope it reaches the young man who was sentenced and helps him to change his life. 
R. P.
Denver

I heard you speak about the importance of striving forward two years ago at the beginning of my college career. Still, the message has not changed now that I am leaving RCC. Your message stood with me through my trials and tribulations throughout my stay at a community college. You encouraged me to believe in myself, and that I can be an intelligent, strong, Mexican woman. Now I am leaving my small pond and moving on to Cal State San Bernardino. I plan to double major in English and Communications and become a teacher in the future.
 Listening to you brings a sense of acceptance to who I am. Mainly because the only male influence I had were my uncles and my grandfather because my biological father wasn't in the picture. They never encouraged me to go to school or better myself. Some of my uncles didn't want to see me succeed because their own children didn't. The rest of my uncles and grandfather were ignorant to the notion of an education. You brought peace to my heart and set my soul at ease when I heard you, a brown man, say that women should go to college. Thank you.
M. T.

Your personal motivation to learn and grow has pushed me to not only do the same for myself, but to help others. I recently contacted a young man in prison in California. He's 24 years old and full of potential to do great things, full of aspirations, full of all the positive energies that have not yet been discovered or acknowledged, but lie in him like a hidden treasure. It is my prayer to help navigate him with positive words and actions.
V. P.
University Student
New York City

I was raised on welfare and food stamps, my father is a deadbeat and is drinking himself to death as I type this, my brother served 13 years in prison and persevered to become a better man. I know struggle, my whole life has been struggle. I've seen the world at its worst and if I can help one of my students to defeat their own demons then I will know it was worth something.
R. R.
Teacher

I am not only thanking you for letting me in on your hardships, and the raw and shockingly real emotions you've felt throughout your life, but I am thanking you for helping me with my hardships, and my life. 
I want to share with you my severe gratitude for the work that you have done in this book.  You have allowed me to look at my life with a new perception, and see that I have had hardships, but they can so obviously be overcome. 
Ever since my brother died on June, 11, 2003, life has gone to a different tune.  I felt close to you with every described hardship and death, especially that of your difficult relationship with your brother, and then your brother's passing.  Siblings offer a truth more raw than you ever expect, and more real than you can sometimes handle.  There isn't a friend in the world as great as a sibling, and I am greatful to still have a little brother.  My older brother would be 20 now, and I am currently 18 years old.  After his death I began to write poetry.  Much like your reason for writing, it was to free myself.  Only I did not have such a forced captivity, I still felt as if I was in prison.  My mind to this day is less open to emotion, and I am almost empty of all aspirations. 
You have lit my pathway, at least somewhat, with aspirations. 
Z. H.
Columbia, MO