Originally published as a collection in 1980, individual poems by Salinas appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and anthologies from the 1960s through the 1970s. The poetry forged over fifteen years in the heat of the Chicano Movement (a period Salinas spent, in part, in prison) reveal the growing politicization of intelligent and talented minority convicts incarcerated at a time when their communities were marching forward. Prison bars were not strong enough to limit Salinas's highly lyric, even rhapsodic calls for liberation---poems inspired by jazz, the Beat writers, nature, and political skirmishes.
