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It's said that to be a poet

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you have to go to hell and back.

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The first time I visited the prison,

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I was not surprised by the noise
of the padlocks,

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or the closing doors,
or the cell bars,

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or by any of 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 overhead,
and you feel like you're next to the sea,

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that you're really close to the beach.

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

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I went farther inside and I suddenly saw
inmates moving across the corridors.

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Then it was as if I stepped back
and thought

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that I could have very well been
one of them.

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

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Because nobody - nobody -
can choose where they're born.

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In 2009, I was invited to join a project

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that San Martín National University
conducted at the Unit 48 penitentiary,

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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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which is where they constructed
the University Center building.

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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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Right then I decided that I wanted poetry
to enter the prison.

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So I said to them
why don't we work with poetry,

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if they knew what poetry was.

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But nobody had a clue
what poetry really was.

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They also suggested to me

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that the workshop should be
not just for the inmates

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taking university classes, 
but for all the inmates.

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And so I said
that to start this workshop,

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I needed to find a tool
that we all had in common.

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That tool was language.

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

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But what I hadn't considered
was that inequality exists in prison, too.

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Many of the prisoners hadn't even
completed grammar school.

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Many couldn't use cursive,
could barely 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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Very short, but very powerful.

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And we started to read, and we'd read
one author, then another author,

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and by reading such 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 create another system.

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Breaking the logic of language
also breaks the logic of the system

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under which they've learned to respond.

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So a new system appeared,

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new rules that made them
understand very quickly,

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- very quickly -

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that with poetic language

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they would be able to say
absolutely whatever they wanted.

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It's said that to be a poet
you have to go to hell and back.

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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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then said,
“That's what poetry is, you guys.

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It's in this prison universe
that you have all around you.

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Everything you say
about how you never sleep,

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it exudes fear.

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All the things that go unwritten --
all of that is poetry."

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So we started appropriating that hell;

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we plunged ourselves, headfirst,
into the seventh circle.

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And in that seventh circle of hell,
our very own, beloved circle,

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they learned that they could
make the walls invisible,

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that they could make the windows yell,

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and that we could hide inside the shadows.

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When the first year
of the workshop had ended,

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we organized a little closing party,

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like you do when a job is done
with so much love,

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and you want to celebrate with a party.

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We called family, friends, 
the university authorities.

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The only thing the inmates
had to do was read a poem,

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and receive their diplomas and applause.

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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 in which those men,

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some of them just huge
when standing next to me,

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or the young boys - so young,
but with an enormous pride,

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held their papers and trembled
like little 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 for most of them,
it was surely the very first time

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that someone applauded them
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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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 themselves.

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That was at the end of 2010.

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Then, we doubled the bet
and wrote another book.

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And we bound that one, too.

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

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What I see week after week,

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is how they're turning
into different people;

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how they're being transformed.

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How words are empowering them
with a dignity they had never known,

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that 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 share, we all give something.

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We open our hands and hearts and give
what we have, what we can.

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All of us;
all of us equally.

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And so you feel that at least
in a small way

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you're 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
by a tremendous poet, a great poet,

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from our Unit 48 workshop,
Nicolás Dorado:

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"I will need 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 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 a prison,

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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 hell
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 the prison,
a lot about what I experience

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every week, and how I enjoy it
and transform myself with the inmates.

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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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blinded by that light,

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it hides the speed of existence

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where the images go rowing by.

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It fights; it hangs on.

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The heart cracks under sad gazes,

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rides on 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 to avoid being ordinary,

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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 toward reason.

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The heart fights among the swamps,

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skirts the edge of the underworld,

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falls exhausted, but won't give in
to what's easy,

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while irregular steps of intoxication

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wake up,

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wake the stillness.

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I'm Martín Bustamante,

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I'm a prisoner in Unit 48 of San Martín,

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today is my day of temporary release.

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And for me, poetry and literature
have changed my life.

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Thank you very much!

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Cristina Domenech: Thank you!

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(Applause)