Of Apache and Chicano ancestry, Baca, at the age of twenty-one, was convicted on drug charges and spent six and a half years in prison, where he found his voice as a poet through correspondence with Denise Levertov.
Baca wrote about this transformative experience in the essay, Coming into Language, which was featured in PEN American Center’s Prize Anthology, Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing. In addition to his many collections of poetry, Baca has written several novels, a memoir, a play, and a screenplay for the film Blood In, Blood Out. Baca also won the 1988 American Book Award for his full-length book of poetry, Martín and Meditations on the South Valley.