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It's said that to be a poet

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you have to descend to hell once.

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The first time I entered the prison,

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I was not surprised by the noise
of the padlocks,

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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

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that 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

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that the workshop was not only 
for graduated inmates,

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but also for all the common inmates.

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And then I said
that to start this workshop,

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I needed 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.

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Short, but powerful indeed.

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

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

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that what the poetic language did
was to break a certain logic

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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,

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new rules that made them
understand really fast,

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really fast,

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that with the poetic language

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they would absolutely say
what they wanted.

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

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And they have plenty of hell.
Plenty of hell.

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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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And so, like I’m doing now,
I gave them a moment of silence.

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And then, I said,
“This is what poetry is, guys.

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The prison universe is here,
in your hands.

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Everything you say
about how you never sleep,

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exudes fear, all of the unwritten.

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All that 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,

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windows could yell

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and that we could hide inside the shadows.

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The first year the workshop
had finished,

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we organized a little closing party
as they are done.

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When a job is done with so much love,
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

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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
voices completely broken.

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That moment made me think a lot

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that surely most of them were applauded

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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

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is how they are turning
into different people,

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

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All of us equally.

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Thus you feel that at least
in a small way

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you are repairing
that huge social fracture

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which makes it so that for many of them

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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

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

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In order to write,

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they need to appropriate
the moment of writing

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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,

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and that the only bars we have
in our wonderful space

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is the word bars,

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and that all of us 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 it

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if you could feel, live, experience,
even for a few seconds,

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

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(Applause)

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Martín Bustamante: 
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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Where 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,

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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

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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 changed my life.

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Thank you very much!

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Cristina Domenech: Thank you!

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(Applause)