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It's said that to be a poet you have to
descend to the underworld once.

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The first time I entered the prison, 
I was not surprised by the noise

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of the padlocks, the closing doors,
or the bars,

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or anything of all the things
I had imagined.

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Maybe because the prison
is in a quite open space.

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You can see the sky.

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Seagulls fly through the sky and
you think you are next to the sea.

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That you are really close to the beach.

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But in fact, the gulls go to the dump
near the prison looking for food.

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I continued walking in and I suddenly saw
inmates moving across the corridors.

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It was as if I stepped back
and thought that

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I could have perfectly been
one of them.

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If I had another story,
another context, another luck.

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Because nobody, nobody,
can choose where to be born.

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In 2009 I was invited to join
a project

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the San Martín National University
has in the Unit 48,

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to coordinate a writing workshop.

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The prison service ceded some
land at the end of the prison.

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Right there they constructed the
building of the University Center.

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The first time I met with the prisoners,

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I asked them why they were
asking for a writing workshop

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and they told me they wanted 
to put on paper

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all that they couldn't say
and do.

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There I decided that I wanted
poetry to enter the prison.

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Then I told them why we don't 
work with poetry,

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if they knew what poetry was.

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Nobody had a clue about what
poetry really was.

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Besides, they explained to me
that the workshop was not only

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for graduated inmates,
but also for

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all the common inmates.

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And then I said that to start
this workshop I needed

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some tool that we all have.

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And that tool was language.

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So, we had language, we had the workshop.
We could have poetry.

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But what I didn't consider was
the inequality also in prison.

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Many of them that didn't even 
have a complete primary education.

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Many couldn't use cursive,
but hardly print.

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They didn't write fluently either.

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So, we started looking for short
poems. Short, but powerful indeed.

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And started to read, and read 
an author and another author

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and by reading those short poems,
they all begin to realize

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that what the poetic language did
was to break

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a certain logic and 
it created another system.

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Breaking the logic of language is 
also breaking the logic of the system

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they are used to respond to.

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So a new system appeared,
some new rules

47
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that made them understand really fast,
but really fast,

48
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that with the poetic language they would
absolutely say what they wanted.

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It's said that to be a poet you have to
descend to the hell once.

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And they have plenty of hell.
Plenty of hell.

51
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One of them once said:
"In prison you never sleep.

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You can never sleep in jail.
You can never close your eyelids".

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Then, I did like this now,

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a moment of silence and tell them:
That is poetry, that.

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The prison universe is there,
in hand.

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All this you say,
that you never sleep.

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This exudes fear. All the unwritten.
All this is poetry.

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So we started appropriating 
that hell.

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And we plunged ourselves into,
the seventh circle.

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In that seventh circle of hell,
our own and so beloved circle,

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they learned that walls could 
be invisible, windows could

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yell and that we could hide
inside the shadows.

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The first year the workshop
had finished, we organized

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a little closing party
as they are done

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when a job is done
with so much love.

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You want to celebrate
and have a party.

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We called family, friends, 
the university authorities.

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The only thing they had to do
was reading a poem,

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receiving their diploma, applause and
that was our simple party.

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The only thing I want to leave you with
is the moment those men,

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at times huge when they stand by me.

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Or very young boys,
but with an enormous pride,

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they held their paper and trembled
like kids and sweated

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and read their poems with their
voice completely broken.

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That moment made me think a lot
that surely most of them

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were applauded for the first time
for something they had done.

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In prison there are things
that can't be done.

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In prison you can't dream,
in prison you can't cry.

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There are words that are virtually
forbidden like the word time,

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the word future, the word wish.

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But we dared to dream
and to dream a lot

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because we decided that they 
were going to write a book.

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Not only did they write a book
but they also bound it.

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That was by the end of 2010.

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We doubled the bet
and wrote another book.

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And bound another book.

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That was a short time ago,
by the end of last year.

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What I see week after week
is how they are turning into

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different people, how they are
being transformed.

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How words empower them with
a dignity they hadn't heard of,

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they couldn't even imagine.

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They had no idea of such dignity
and that could come from them.

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At the workshop, in that beloved hell
we have, we all give.

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We open our hands and hearts and give

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what we have, what we can. All of us.

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All of us equally.

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In that way you feel that
at least, in little proportion

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you are repairing that huge
social fracture that makes that

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for many of them prison is
their only destination.

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I remember a verse of a
tremendous poet, a great poet,

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of the Unit 48 of our
workshop, Nicolás Dorado:

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"I have to get an infinite thread
to sew up this huge wound".

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Poetry does that. It sews up
The wounds of exclusion.

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It opens doors. 
Poetry works as a mirror.

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It creates a mirror, which is the poem.

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They recognize themselves, they look at
themselves in the poem and write

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from who they are and they are
from what they write.

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In order to write, they need
to appropriate the moment

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of writing which is a moment
of extraordinary freedom.

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They have to get into their heads,
search for that bit of freedom

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that can never be taken away
when they write

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and that is also useful to
realize that freedom is possible

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even inside the jail,
and that the only bars we have

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in our wonderful space
is the word bars and that all of us,

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in our inferno
burn with happiness

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when we light
the wick of the word.

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(Applause)

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I told you a lot about prison,
a lot about my experience

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every week and how I enjoy it
and transform myself with them.

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But you don´t know how much I'd like
that you could feel, live,

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experience, even
for a few seconds,

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what I enjoy every week
and makes me who I am.

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(Applause)

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"The heart chews tears of time

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blind by that light

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hides the speed of existence

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were the images row

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it fights, it hangs on.

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The heart cracks under the sad gazes

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rides through storms that spread fire

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lifts chests lowered by shame,

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knows that it's not just reading and
going on,

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it also wishes to see the infinite blue.

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The heart sits down to think about things,

135
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fights for avoiding commonplaces,

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Tries to love without hurting,

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Breathes the sun giving courage to itself,

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surrenders, travels to the reason.

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The heart fights among swamps,

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goes along the edge of the underworld,

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falls weakly and doesn't yield to
the easy way

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while irregular steps of intoxication

143
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wake,

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wake the stillness".

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I'm Martín Bustamante,

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I am a prisoner
in Unit 48 of San Martín,

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today is my day of temporary release.

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Poetry and literature

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changed my life.

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Thank you very much!
(Applause)

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CD: Thank you!

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(Applause)