As his Pushcart Prize-winning memoir A Place to Stand and his autobiographical novel American Orphan attest, Jimmy Santiago Baca prefers to write about his past experiences openly, describing his early life troubles and his period of incarceration with frank honesty and vivid detail. Because his parents abandoned him early in his life to the care of others, Baca is aware of the value and importance of human warmth and connectedness as well as the emotional power of love. As a former prisoner, Baca has described the difficulties of life while incarcerated, where aloneness is, paradoxically, both a condition of life in a cell and a preferred state of being that can be difficult to achieve while living within a large group of confined individuals. Baca’s background equips him with a unique kind of knowledge about the world and about relationships, and the universal message of love in “I Am Offering this Poem” reflects that depth of knowledge.

Baca’s father was an abusive alcoholic, and after his parents separated, his mother deserted Baca and his two siblings in order to marry someone else. Baca lived with his grandmother after his parents abandoned him when he was 2, but when his grandfather died, his grandmother placed him into an orphanage.