I chose to read "Sleeping Convicts in the Cellblock," by Jimmy Santiago Baca, because the poem's subtle theme of rebirth and second chances really intrigued me. I admire that Baca didn't directly state the poem's meaning, but instead, chose to leave plentiful yet subtle hints, forcing me to make inferences and question my understanding of the piece. Initially, I was entirely ignorant of the poem's meaning. I was trying to examine it in a far too literal sense, leading me to question the significance of the songbird and the songbird's actions. However, over the course of multiple readings, I was able to meticulously pick apart what each line, phrase and individual word meant and how each of these aspects correlate to make a complex and meaningful poem. At first glance, this poem was extremely confusing. Baca makes it clear that the poem takes place in a prison and that a songbird flies over the prison while the convicts are sleeping, but the first time that I read through the poem, that was essentially all that I gathered. I understood all of the literal events that had transpired, but I just didn't put enough time or effort into comprehending the metaphorical aspects of the writing to understand much of anything. This left me with a very basic comprehension of what Baca had written. I didn't understand how the songbird and the convicts were relevant to one another. To me, they were just two independent parts of a highly confusing, one-stanza, poem. However, going back and re-reading the poem shed a lot of light on the matter. I picked up on a lot of things that I didn't originally notice. I started to grasp the correlation between the songbird and the convicts. I picked up on the fact that the songbird was a symbol of rebirth and a second chance for these prisoners. The lines, "It sings to the new day, / Its wings beckoning for flight. Its wings flap" (11-12), were probably my biggest clues. This excerpt really made me stop readin