WEBVTT

00:00:02.963 --> 00:00:06.658
It's said that to be a poet

00:00:07.258 --> 00:00:11.473
you have to descend to hell once.

00:00:12.173 --> 00:00:15.609
The first time I entered the prison,

00:00:15.609 --> 00:00:20.185
I was not surprised by the noise
of the padlocks,

00:00:20.185 --> 00:00:24.493
the closing doors, or the bars,

00:00:24.493 --> 00:00:28.246
or anything of all the things
I had imagined.

00:00:28.246 --> 00:00:33.559
Maybe because the prison
is in a quite open space.

00:00:33.559 --> 00:00:35.689
You can see the sky.

00:00:35.689 --> 00:00:39.332
Seagulls fly through the sky
and you think you are next to the sea.

00:00:39.332 --> 00:00:42.375
That you are really close to the beach.

00:00:42.375 --> 00:00:48.305
But in fact, the gulls go to the dump
near the prison looking for food.

00:00:49.250 --> 00:00:55.221
I continued walking in and I suddenly saw
inmates moving across the corridors.

00:00:55.886 --> 00:01:00.116
It was as if I stepped back and thought

00:01:00.116 --> 00:01:03.975
that I could have perfectly been
one of them.

00:01:03.975 --> 00:01:09.522
If I had another story,
another context, another luck.

00:01:10.457 --> 00:01:15.959
Because nobody, nobody,
can choose where to be born.

00:01:17.790 --> 00:01:22.463
In 2009 I was invited to join a project

00:01:22.498 --> 00:01:27.830
the San Martín National University
has in the Unit 48,

00:01:27.865 --> 00:01:31.085
to coordinate a writing workshop.

00:01:31.120 --> 00:01:37.530
The prison service ceded some land
at the end of the prison.

00:01:37.565 --> 00:01:43.157
Right there they constructed
the building of the University Center.

00:01:44.152 --> 00:01:46.570
The first time I met with the prisoners,

00:01:46.570 --> 00:01:50.245
I asked them why they were asking
for a writing workshop

00:01:50.245 --> 00:01:53.896
and they told me they wanted 
to put on paper

00:01:53.896 --> 00:01:57.827
all that they couldn't say and do.

00:01:58.922 --> 00:02:03.929
There I decided that I wanted poetry
to enter the prison.

00:02:05.274 --> 00:02:09.008
Then I told them
why we don't work with poetry,

00:02:09.044 --> 00:02:10.750
if they knew what poetry was.

00:02:10.785 --> 00:02:16.267
Nobody had a clue
about what poetry really was.

00:02:18.622 --> 00:02:20.456
Besides, they explained to me

00:02:20.456 --> 00:02:24.045
that the workshop was not only 
for graduated inmates,

00:02:24.045 --> 00:02:28.456
but also for all the common inmates.

00:02:28.491 --> 00:02:31.808
And then I said
that to start this workshop,

00:02:31.808 --> 00:02:35.600
I needed some tool that we all have.

00:02:35.635 --> 00:02:38.716
And that tool was language.

00:02:38.751 --> 00:02:44.918
So, we had language, we had the workshop.
We could have poetry.

00:02:44.953 --> 00:02:50.799
But what I didn't consider
was the inequality also in prison.

00:02:50.834 --> 00:02:55.845
Many of them that didn't even have
a complete primary education.

00:02:55.880 --> 00:03:01.275
Many couldn't use cursive,
but hardly print.

00:03:03.310 --> 00:03:06.852
They didn't write fluently either.

00:03:06.887 --> 00:03:11.693
So, we started looking for short poems.

00:03:11.693 --> 00:03:14.979
Short, but powerful indeed.

00:03:14.979 --> 00:03:18.717
And started to read, and read,
one author and another author

00:03:18.717 --> 00:03:23.812
and by reading those short poems,
they all began to realize

00:03:23.847 --> 00:03:28.309
that what the poetic language did
was to break a certain logic

00:03:28.309 --> 00:03:30.394
and it created another system.

00:03:30.394 --> 00:03:34.188
Breaking the logic of language is 
also breaking the logic of the system

00:03:34.188 --> 00:03:37.755
they are used to respond to.

00:03:38.550 --> 00:03:42.423
So a new system appeared,

00:03:42.423 --> 00:03:47.282
new rules that made them
understand really fast,

00:03:47.282 --> 00:03:49.311
really fast,

00:03:49.311 --> 00:03:51.360
that with the poetic language

00:03:51.360 --> 00:03:55.739
they would absolutely say
what they wanted.

00:03:59.689 --> 00:04:05.240
It's said that to be a poet
you have to descend to hell once.

00:04:05.275 --> 00:04:09.994
And they have plenty of hell.
Plenty of hell.

00:04:10.029 --> 00:04:14.659
One of them once said:
"In prison you never sleep.

00:04:14.659 --> 00:04:20.315
You can never sleep in jail.
You can never close your eyelids."

00:04:20.351 --> 00:04:26.707
And so, like I’m doing now,
I gave them a moment of silence.

00:04:26.707 --> 00:04:31.429
And then, I said,
“This is what poetry is, guys.

00:04:32.309 --> 00:04:37.314
The prison universe is here,
in your hands.

00:04:37.349 --> 00:04:39.824
Everything you say
about how you never sleep,

00:04:39.824 --> 00:04:43.434
exudes fear, all of the unwritten.

00:04:43.434 --> 00:04:46.229
All that is poetry."

00:04:47.469 --> 00:04:51.506
So we started appropriating that hell.

00:04:51.541 --> 00:04:55.034
And we plunged ourselves 
into the seventh circle.

00:04:55.069 --> 00:04:59.012
In that seventh circle of hell,
our own and so beloved circle,

00:04:59.047 --> 00:05:03.434
they learned
that walls could be invisible,

00:05:03.434 --> 00:05:05.604
windows could yell

00:05:05.604 --> 00:05:08.954
and that we could hide inside the shadows.

00:05:11.504 --> 00:05:14.954
The first year the workshop
had finished,

00:05:14.954 --> 00:05:18.242
we organized a little closing party
as they are done.

00:05:18.242 --> 00:05:24.012
When a job is done with so much love,
you want to celebrate and have a party.

00:05:24.342 --> 00:05:28.964
We called family, friends, 
the university authorities.

00:05:28.999 --> 00:05:33.141
The only thing they had to do
was reading a poem,

00:05:33.141 --> 00:05:38.614
receiving their diploma, applause
and that was our simple party.

00:05:40.209 --> 00:05:45.404
The only thing I want to leave you with

00:05:46.694 --> 00:05:49.349
is the moment those men,

00:05:49.349 --> 00:05:53.454
at times huge when they stand by me,

00:05:53.489 --> 00:05:58.930
or very young boys,
but with an enormous pride,

00:05:58.965 --> 00:06:05.073
they held their paper and trembled
like kids and sweated

00:06:05.078 --> 00:06:10.657
and read their poems with their
voices completely broken.

00:06:12.202 --> 00:06:15.579
That moment made me think a lot

00:06:15.909 --> 00:06:20.256
that surely most of them were applauded

00:06:20.256 --> 00:06:25.564
for the first time
for something they had done.

00:06:28.809 --> 00:06:32.222
In prison there are things
that can't be done.

00:06:32.257 --> 00:06:37.118
In prison you can't dream,
in prison you can't cry.

00:06:37.118 --> 00:06:42.147
There are words that are virtually
forbidden, like the word time,

00:06:42.147 --> 00:06:46.996
the word future, the word wish.

00:06:47.031 --> 00:06:52.282
But we dared to dream and to dream a lot

00:06:52.317 --> 00:06:57.126
because we decided
that they were going to write a book.

00:06:57.126 --> 00:07:01.546
Not only did they write a book
but they also bound it.

00:07:01.546 --> 00:07:04.642
That was by the end of 2010.

00:07:04.642 --> 00:07:09.051
We doubled the bet
and wrote another book.

00:07:09.051 --> 00:07:10.685
And bound another book.

00:07:10.685 --> 00:07:14.109
That was a short time ago,
by the end of last year.

00:07:16.474 --> 00:07:20.000
What I see week after week

00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.647
is how they are turning
into different people,

00:07:24.647 --> 00:07:27.214
how they are being transformed.

00:07:27.214 --> 00:07:31.251
How words empower them
with a dignity they hadn't heard of,

00:07:31.251 --> 00:07:33.334
they couldn't even imagine.

00:07:33.334 --> 00:07:38.125
They had no idea such dignity
could come from them.

00:07:39.130 --> 00:07:45.297
At the workshop, in that beloved hell
we have, we all give.

00:07:45.297 --> 00:07:51.497
We open our hands and hearts and give
what we have, what we can. All of us.

00:07:51.497 --> 00:07:53.151
All of us equally.

00:07:53.151 --> 00:07:57.346
Thus you feel that at least
in a small way

00:07:57.381 --> 00:08:01.416
you are repairing
that huge social fracture

00:08:01.416 --> 00:08:06.634
which makes it so that for many of them

00:08:06.634 --> 00:08:10.062
prison is their only destination.

00:08:12.172 --> 00:08:17.551
I remember a verse
of a tremendous poet, a great poet,

00:08:18.586 --> 00:08:24.430
of the Unit 48 of our
workshop, Nicolás Dorado:

00:08:28.485 --> 00:08:34.789
"I have to get an infinite thread
to sew up this huge wound."

00:08:35.485 --> 00:08:40.679
Poetry does that. It sews up
the wounds of exclusion.

00:08:41.144 --> 00:08:46.382
It opens doors. 
Poetry works as a mirror.

00:08:46.417 --> 00:08:49.762
It creates a mirror, which is the poem.

00:08:49.762 --> 00:08:53.935
They recognize themselves,
they look at themselves in the poem

00:08:53.935 --> 00:08:58.808
and write from who they are
and they are from what they write.

00:08:58.808 --> 00:09:01.513
In order to write,

00:09:01.513 --> 00:09:05.704
they need to appropriate
the moment of writing

00:09:05.704 --> 00:09:09.285
which is a moment
of extraordinary freedom.

00:09:09.285 --> 00:09:12.098
They have to get into their heads,
search for that bit of freedom

00:09:12.098 --> 00:09:17.124
that can never be taken away
when they write

00:09:17.124 --> 00:09:20.635
and that is also useful
to realize that freedom is possible

00:09:20.635 --> 00:09:22.973
even inside the jail,

00:09:22.973 --> 00:09:28.235
and that the only bars we have
in our wonderful space

00:09:28.235 --> 00:09:30.097
is the word bars,

00:09:30.097 --> 00:09:33.959
and that all of us in our inferno
burn with happiness

00:09:33.959 --> 00:09:37.669
when we light the wick of the word.

00:09:37.704 --> 00:09:40.704
(Applause)

00:10:05.643 --> 00:10:11.817
I told you a lot about prison,
a lot about my experience

00:10:11.817 --> 00:10:16.178
every week and how I enjoy it
and transform myself with them.

00:10:16.178 --> 00:10:19.793
But you don't know how much I'd like it

00:10:19.793 --> 00:10:25.159
if you could feel, live, experience,
even for a few seconds,

00:10:25.159 --> 00:10:29.494
what I enjoy every week
and what makes me who I am.

00:10:32.151 --> 00:10:35.151
(Applause)

00:10:41.228 --> 00:10:45.429
Martín Bustamante: 
The heart chews tears of time

00:10:45.464 --> 00:10:48.296
Blind by that light

00:10:48.331 --> 00:10:51.706
Hides the speed of existence

00:10:51.741 --> 00:10:53.364
Where the images row

00:10:53.399 --> 00:10:56.787
It fights, it hangs on.

00:10:56.822 --> 00:11:00.519
The heart cracks under the sad gazes

00:11:00.554 --> 00:11:04.327
Rides through storms that spread fire

00:11:04.327 --> 00:11:07.451
Lifts chests lowered by shame,

00:11:07.451 --> 00:11:10.577
Knows that it's not just reading
and going on,

00:11:10.612 --> 00:11:14.422
It also wishes to see the infinite blue.

00:11:14.457 --> 00:11:18.185
The heart sits down to think about things,

00:11:18.185 --> 00:11:20.847
Fights for avoiding commonplaces,

00:11:20.882 --> 00:11:24.270
Tries to love without hurting,

00:11:24.305 --> 00:11:27.963
Breathes the sun giving courage to itself,

00:11:27.998 --> 00:11:32.391
Surrenders, travels to the reason.

00:11:32.391 --> 00:11:35.064
The heart fights among swamps,

00:11:35.099 --> 00:11:38.779
Goes along the edge of the underworld,

00:11:38.814 --> 00:11:43.101
Falls weakly and doesn't yield
to the easy way

00:11:43.101 --> 00:11:45.520
While irregular steps of intoxication

00:11:45.555 --> 00:11:47.097
Wake,

00:11:47.132 --> 00:11:49.017
Wake the stillness.

00:11:49.052 --> 00:11:51.029
I'm Martín Bustamante,

00:11:51.756 --> 00:11:55.254
I am a prisoner in Unit 48 of San Martín,

00:11:55.254 --> 00:11:58.252
today is my day of temporary release.

00:11:58.252 --> 00:12:01.784
Poetry and literature changed my life.

00:12:01.784 --> 00:12:02.905
Thank you very much!

00:12:02.905 --> 00:12:04.325
Cristina Domenech: Thank you!

00:12:04.325 --> 00:12:06.645
(Applause)