Poetry that frees the soul

“It’s said that to be a poet, you have to go to hell and back.” Cristina Domenech teaches writing at an Argentinian prison, and she tells the moving story of helping incarcerated people express themselves, understand themselves — and glory in the freedom of language. Watch for a powerful reading from one of her students, an inmate, in front of an audience of 10,000. In Spanish with subtitles.

It's said that to be a poet

you have to descend to hell once.

The first time I entered the prison,

I was not surprised by the noise
of the padlocks,

the closing doors, or the bars,

or anything of all the things
I had imagined.

Maybe because the prison
is in a quite open space.

You can see the sky.

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

That you are really close to the beach.

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

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

It was as if I stepped back and thought

that I could have perfectly been
one of them.

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

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

In 2009 I was invited to join a project

the San Martín National University
has in the Unit 48,

to coordinate a writing workshop.

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

Right there they constructed
the building of the University Center.

The first time I met with the prisoners,

I asked them why they were asking
for a writing workshop

and they told me they wanted
to put on paper

all that they couldn't say and do.

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

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

if they knew what poetry was.

Nobody had a clue
about what poetry really was.

Besides, they explained to me

that the workshop was not only
for graduated inmates,

but also for all the common inmates.

And then I said
that to start this workshop,

I needed some tool that we all have.

And that tool was language.

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

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

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

Many couldn't use cursive,
but hardly print.

They didn't write fluently either.

So, we started looking for short poems.

Short, but powerful indeed.

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

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

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

and it created another system.

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

they are used to respond to.

So a new system appeared,

new rules that made them
understand really fast,

really fast,

that with the poetic language

they would absolutely say
what they wanted.

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

And they have plenty of hell.
Plenty of hell.

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

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

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

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

The prison universe is here,
in your hands.

Everything you say
about how you never sleep,

exudes fear, all of the unwritten.

All that is poetry."

So we started appropriating that hell.

And we plunged ourselves
into the seventh circle.

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

they learned
that walls could be invisible,

windows could yell

and that we could hide inside the shadows.

The first year the workshop
had finished,

we organized a little closing party
as they are done.

When a job is done with so much love,
you want to celebrate and have a party.

We called family, friends,
the university authorities.

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

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

The only thing I want to leave you with

is the moment those men,

at times huge when they stand by me,

or very young boys,
but with an enormous pride,

they held their paper and trembled
like kids and sweated

and read their poems with their
voices completely broken.

That moment made me think a lot

that surely most of them were applauded

for the first time
for something they had done.

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

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

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

the word future, the word wish.

But we dared to dream and to dream a lot

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

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

That was by the end of 2010.

We doubled the bet
and wrote another book.

And bound another book.

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

What I see week after week

is how they are turning
into different people,

how they are being transformed.

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

they couldn't even imagine.

They had no idea such dignity
could come from them.

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

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

All of us equally.

Thus you feel that at least
in a small way

you are repairing
that huge social fracture

which makes it so that for many of them

prison is their only destination.

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

of the Unit 48 of our
workshop, Nicolás Dorado:

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

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

It opens doors.
Poetry works as a mirror.

It creates a mirror, which is the poem.

They recognize themselves,
they look at themselves in the poem

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

In order to write,

they need to appropriate
the moment of writing

which is a moment
of extraordinary freedom.

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

that can never be taken away
when they write

and that is also useful
to realize that freedom is possible

even inside the jail,

and that the only bars we have
in our wonderful space

is the word bars,

and that all of us in our inferno
burn with happiness

when we light the wick of the word.

(Applause)

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

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

But you don't know how much I'd like it

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

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

(Applause)

Martín Bustamante:
The heart chews tears of time

Blind by that light

Hides the speed of existence

Where the images row

It fights, it hangs on.

The heart cracks under the sad gazes

Rides through storms that spread fire

Lifts chests lowered by shame,

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

It also wishes to see the infinite blue.

The heart sits down to think about things,

Fights for avoiding commonplaces,

Tries to love without hurting,

Breathes the sun giving courage to itself,

Surrenders, travels to the reason.

The heart fights among swamps,

Goes along the edge of the underworld,

Falls weakly and doesn't yield
to the easy way

While irregular steps of intoxication

Wake,

Wake the stillness.

I'm Martín Bustamante,

I am a prisoner in Unit 48 of San Martín,

today is my day of temporary release.

Poetry and literature changed my life.

Thank you very much!

Cristina Domenech: Thank you!

(Applause)