Aguila, Poncho

Original Typed Poem: "Faith" (1976)

San Francisco, CA: n/p, 1976. Original Manuscript. Single Sheet. “Look inward / to the color prints on the wall, / the travel posters above the couch, / browse thru the library of your books, / turn-on, the neon-lights of your direction… / and await the sun / the might, burning fist / pushing, thru the night, / and remember the turn of the world, / the cause of change— / is a spinning top / flung by the string / pulling and pushing you” (from “Faith”). An original manuscript featuring the poem, “Faith” by Pancho Aguila (b. 1945-????), the pen name of Roberto Ignacio Solis, the convicted murder, armored car robber, and “devout social activist,” in the words of Thomas Rain Crowe (b. 1949), whose work with prison poets during the Second San Francisco Renaissance was at the crux of the SSFR’s association with the inmates at Folsom. As Crowe writes in our book, Starting from San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (Item No. 3071), "Pancho Aguila was incarcerated and serving time in Folsom Prison in northern California when I met him. He was a political prisoner and was serving time without the possibility of parole. I met him as part of a creative writing project for prison inmates in California. Max Schwartz--the Berkeley poet who had a radio show on prison poetry on KPFA--set these visits up for a group of us Beatitude [Magazine] poets to be part of the Creative Writing Workshop at Folsom Prison...But several of us went up to Folsom from San Francisco several times and met with Pancho, who was the inmate head of the workshop and his group of writers. Pancho was of Nicaraguan descent and was part of the American contingent of Sandinista revolutionaries living in San Francisco and working to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship...He was a devout social activist and dedicated poet." (Thomas Rain Crowe, quoted from TMB Publication "Starting from San Francisco," TMB Item #3071. Solis disappeared in 1993, a year after his release from prison after serving 23 years at Folsom for murdering, Louis Drake, a security guard, during an armored truck robbery in 1969. In a film noir plot made life, Solis repeated the exact same crime the year after his release. He met Heather Tallchief, an employee at a security company, and engineered a $3.1 million-dollar robbery. The two went on the run and had a child, — but Tallchief turned herself in in September 2005. Solis, however, is still at large. We wonder if he’s writing poems these days. From the archive of Thomas Rain Crowe, the legendary American poet and co-authorial founder of the Second San Francisco Renaissance. For more information on the Thomas Rain Crowe archive (assembled & curated by Third Mind Books), see our book, Starting from San Francisco: Thomas Rain Crowe in Conversation with Third Mind Books (Item No. 3071) & the catalog for the Crowe archive (Item No. 1010), which contains several excerpts and quotations from the book as well as a full listing of the archive’s contents, which are now being offered for sale individually on the Third Mind Books site. Original Manuscript on single sheet: the only extant copy of Solis/Aguila’s “Faith.” In Good condition with moderate-to-enunciated age-toning, crinkling, discoloration, bumping & creasing throughout; otherwise, clean. Good. [Item #7765]

Price: $30.00