It's said that to be a poet you have to go to hell and back.
Kažu, da biste bili pesnik, morate se bar jednom spustiti u pakao.
The first time I visited the prison, I was not surprised by the noise of the padlocks, or the closing doors, or the cell bars, or by any of the things I had imagined.
Prvi put kada sam ušla u zatvor, nije me iznenadila buka katanaca ni vrata koja su se zatvarala, ni rešetke, ni bilo šta što sam očekivala. Možda zato što se zatvor nalazi na prilično otvorenom prostoru.
Maybe because the prison is in a quite open space. You can see the sky. Seagulls fly overhead, and you feel like you're next to the sea, that you're really close to the beach. But in fact, the gulls are looking for food in the dump near the prison.
Vidi se nebo. Galebovi preleću i verujete da je more tu pored vas. Da ste veoma blizu plaže. Ali, u stvari, galebovi dolaze da jedu smeće u blizini zatvora.
I went farther inside and I suddenly saw inmates moving across the corridors. Then it was as if I stepped back and thought that I could have very well been one of them. If I had another story, another context, different luck. Because nobody - nobody - can choose where they're born.
Ulazeći, iznenada sam ugledala zatvorenike kako se kreću po paviljonima, kruže. Kao da sam se osvrnula i pomislila da sam mogla savršeno da budem jedna od njih. Da sam imala drugačiju prošlost, drugačije okolnosti, drugu sreću. Jer niko, niko ne može da bira mesto gde će da se rodi.
In 2009, I was invited to join a project that San Martín National University conducted at the Unit 48 penitentiary, to coordinate a writing workshop. The prison service ceded some land at the end of the prison, which is where they constructed the University Center building.
Godine 2009. su me pozvali da učestvujem u jednom projektu koji je sprovodio Nacionalni univerzitet iz San Martina unutar Odeljenja 48, kako bih vodila radionicu kreativnog pisanja. Zatvorski servis je ustupio deo prostora u pozadini zatvora i baš tu su sagradili zgradu univerzitetskog centra.
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.
Prvi put kad sam se susrela sa zatvorenicima, upitala sam ih zašto su zahtevali radionicu kreativnog pisanja, i rekli su mi kako su poželeli da stave na papir sve ono što nisu mogli da kažu i što nisu mogli da urade.
Right then I decided that I wanted poetry to enter the prison. So I said to them why don't we work with poetry, if they knew what poetry was. But nobody had a clue what poetry really was. They also suggested to me that the workshop should be not just for the inmates taking university classes, but for all the inmates. And so I said that to start this workshop, I needed to find a tool that we all had in common. That tool was language.
Tada sam odlučila da želim da donesem poeziju u zatvor. Pa sam ih upitala, zašto ne bismo radili s poezijom, ako znaju šta je poezija. Niko pojma nije imao šta je uistinu poezija. Pritom su mi predložili da radionica ne bude isključivo za zatvorenike koji su pohađali fakultet, već i da uključi sve stanovnike iz zatvorske zajednice. Onda sam rekla, da bismo započeli ovu radionicu potrebno mi je neko oruđe dostupno svima. A to oruđe je bio jezik.
We had language, we had the workshop. We could have poetry. But what I hadn't considered was that inequality exists in prison, too. Many of the prisoners hadn't even completed grammar school. Many couldn't use cursive, could barely print. They didn't write fluently, either. So we started looking for short poems. Very short, but very powerful.
Imali smo jezik, imali smo radionicu. Mogli smo da imamo poeziju. Ali nisam računala na to da nejednakost počiva i u zatvoru, i da mnogi od njih nisu završili ni osnovnu školu. Mnogi nisu znali da koriste kurziv, jedva da su znali i štampana slova. Nisu ni pisali naročito tečno. Pa smo tražili kratke pesme, veoma kratke, ali veoma snažne. I počeli smo da čitamo, čitali smo pisca za piscem
And we started to read, and we'd read one author, then another author, and by reading such short poems, they all began to realize that what the poetic language did was to break a certain logic, and create another system. Breaking the logic of language also breaks the logic of the system under which they've learned to respond. So a new system appeared, new rules that made them understand very quickly, - very quickly - that with poetic language they would be able to say absolutely whatever they wanted.
i čitajući te kratke pesme, svi su shvatili da jezik poezije nastaje kada se razbije logička izvesnost i kada se uspostavi novi sistem. Razbiti logiku jezika, takođe znači razbiti logičnost sistema kome su naučili da se povinuju. Tako je nastao novi sistem, nova pravila koja su veoma brzo savladali, ali veoma brzo, da uz pomoć poetskog jezika mogu da kažu apsolutno sve što žele.
It's said that to be a poet you have to go to hell and back. And they have plenty of hell. Plenty of hell.
Kažu, da biste bili pesnik, morate se bar jednom spustiti u pakao. A njima pakla nije nedostajalo. Pakla im nije nedostajalo.
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, then said, “That's what poetry is, you guys. It's in this prison universe that you have all around you. Everything you say about how you never sleep, it exudes fear. All the things that go unwritten -- all of that is poetry."
Jednom je neko od njih rekao: "U zatvoru nikada ne spavaš. Nikada se ne spava u zatvoru. Nikada ne možeš da spustiš kapke." I tada sam uradila što i sada, nakon momenta tišine, rekla sam im: "Ljudi, ovo je poezija, ovo." Ona se prikazuje u zatvorskom univerzumu, na dohvat vam je ruke. Sve o čemu govorite, da nikada ne spavate. Iz tog se luči strah. Sve nenapisano. Sve je to poezija.
So we started appropriating that hell; we plunged ourselves, headfirst, into the seventh circle. And in that seventh circle of hell, our very own, beloved circle, they learned that they could make the walls invisible, that they could make the windows yell, and that we could hide inside the shadows. When the first year of the workshop had ended, we organized a little closing party, like you do when a job is done with so much love, and you want to celebrate with a party.
Te smo počeli da prisvajamo taj pakao. I direktno smo se strmoglavili u sedmi krug. A u tom sedmom krugu pakla, nama bliskom, nama dragom, naučili smo da zidovi mogu da nestanu, da prozori mogu da vrište, da se skrivamo u senkama. Prve godine, kada smo završili s radionicom priredili smo malenu zabavu za kraj godine, kakav je i običaj kada se odradi posao s toliko ljubavi. Želite da slavite i da napravite zabavu.
We called family, friends, the university authorities. The only thing the inmates had to do was read a poem, and receive their diplomas and applause. That was our simple party. The only thing I want to leave you with is the moment in which those men, some of them just huge when standing next to me, or the young boys - so young, but with an enormous pride, held their papers and trembled like little kids and sweated, and read their poems with their voices completely broken.
Pozvali smo porodicu, prijatelje, nadležne s univerziteta. Sve što je trebalo da urade jeste da pročitaju jednu pesmu, prime diplomu, dobiju aplauz i to je bila čitava naša skromna zabava. Samo želim da vam prenesem sliku momenta kada su ti muškarci, često ogromni u poređenju sa mnom, ili momci, veoma mladi, ali s ogromnim ponosom, kako su stajali s papirom i drhtali kao dečaci, preznojavajući se i kako su čitali svoje pesme glasom potpuno skrhanim.
That moment made me think a lot that for most of them, it was surely the very first time that someone applauded them 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. We decided that they were going to write a book. Not only did they write a book, but they also bound it themselves. That was at the end of 2010. Then, we doubled the bet and wrote another book. And we bound that one, too. That was a short time ago, at the end of last year. What I see week after week, is how they're turning into different people; how they're being transformed. How words are empowering them with a dignity they had never known, that they couldn't even imagine. They had no idea such dignity could come from them.
Taj momenat me je naterao da pomislim da većina njih sigurno nikada pre nije primila aplauz za bilo šta što su uradili. U zatvoru ima stvari koje se ne mogu raditi. U zatvoru se ne može sanjati, u zatvoru se ne može plakati. Neke reči su praktično zabranjene, poput reči "vreme", reči "budućnost", reči "žudnja". Ali mi smo se odvažili da sanjamo i to da sanjamo na veliko, jer smo odlučili da će oni da napišu knjigu. Ne samo da su napisali knjigu, već su je i uvezali. To je bilo krajem 2010. Onda smo podigli ulog i napisali drugu knjigu. I uvezali smo drugu knjigu. To je bilo nedavno, krajem prošle godine. Ono što vidim, iz nedelje u nedelju, jeste kako postaju drugi ljudi, kako se transformišu. Kako ih reči uče dostojanstvu koje im je bilo strano, nezamislivo čak. Nisu znali za dostojanstvo i da bi mogli da ga poseduju.
At the workshop, in that beloved hell we share, we all give something. We open our hands and hearts and give what we have, what we can. All of us; all of us equally. And so you feel that at least in a small way you're repairing that huge social fracture which makes it so that for many of them, prison is their only destination. I remember a verse by a tremendous poet, a great poet, from our Unit 48 workshop, Nicolás Dorado: "I will need an infinite thread to sew up this huge wound."
Za vreme radionice, u tom našem voljenom paklu, sve delimo. Raširimo ruke i srce i delimo koliko imamo, koliko možemo. Sve. Svima jednako. Na taj način osećate da bar malo popravljate tu ogromnu društvenu pukotinu zbog koje mnogi nalik njima, iščekuju zatvor kao jedinu sudbinu. Sećam se stiha jednog strašnog pesnika, velikog pesnika iz Odeljenja 48, iz naše radionice, Nikolasa Dorada: "Moram da pronađem beskonačnu nit da njome zašijem ovu ogromnu ranu."
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 are from what they write.
Poezija to i radi. Šije rane izolacije. Otvara vrata. Poezija je poput ogledala. Stvara ogledalo, a to je pesma sama. Oni se prepoznaju, ogedaju se u pesmi i pišu o onome što jesu, i jesu ono o čemu pišu.
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 a prison, and that the only bars we have in our wonderful space is the word "bars," and that all of us in our hell burn with happiness when we light the wick of the word.
Da bi mogli da pišu potrebno je da ovladaju trenutkom stvaranja pesme a to je trenutak izuzetne slobode. Moraju da potraže u svojoj glavi taj komadić slobode koji im nikad, nikad niko ne može da oduzme, trenutak stvaranja i da im to takođe služi da shvate da je sloboda moguća čak i u zatvoru, i da su jedine rešetke koje imamo u našem divnom prostoru, samo reč "rešetke" i da svi u našem paklu gorimo od sreće kada naučimo kako da koristimo reči kao fitilj.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
I told you a lot about the prison, a lot about what I experience every week, and how I enjoy it and transform myself with the inmates. 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; blinded by that light, it hides the speed of existence where the images go rowing by. It fights; it hangs on.
Govorila sam vam mnogo o zatvoru, mnogo o tome šta proživljavam svake sedmice i koliko uživam i kako se menjam zajedno s njima. Ali znate šta bih volela, kada biste vi mogli da osetite, doživite, da iskusite, makar na nekoliko sekundi ono u čemu ja uživam svake sedmice i zbog čega jesam to što jesam. (Aplauz) Martin Bustamante: "Srce žvaće suze vremena zaslepljeno tom svetlošću prikriva brzinu postojanja kad slike naviru kao vesla, bori se, ne posustaje.
The heart cracks under sad gazes, rides on 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.
Srce se slama pod tužnim pogledima jaše oluje koje kupaju požare podiže grudi unižene stidom, zna da nije sve u praćenju uputstava takođe čezne da vidi beskrajno plavetnilo.
The heart sits down to think about things, fights to avoid being ordinary, tries to love without hurting, breathes the sun, giving courage to itself, surrenders, travels toward reason.
Srce sedne da razmisli, bori se da ne nasedne na tričarije, želi da nauči da voli, a da ne povređuje, udiše sunce i to ga hrabri, prepušta se, ide razumu.
The heart fights among the swamps, skirts the edge of the underworld, falls exhausted, but won't give in to what's easy, while irregular steps of intoxication wake up, wake the stillness.
Srce se bori u kaljugama, iscrtava granice podzemlja, padne onemoćalo, ali se ne predaje lako sve dok ga neravnomerni koraci omamljenosti ne probude, dok ne probude tišinu."
I'm Martín Bustamante, I'm a prisoner in Unit 48 of San Martín, today is my day of temporary release. And for me, poetry and literature have changed my life.
Ja sam Martin Bustamante, zatvorenik sam iz Jedinice 48, u San Martinu, danas su me privremeno pustili. Meni su poezija i književnost promenile život.
Thank you very much!
Mnogo vam hvala! (Aplauz)
Cristina Domenech: Thank you!
Kristina Domenek: Hvala!
(Applause)
(Aplauz)