Day One: “Toda canción de libertad viene de la cárcel” (Mario de Andrade)

Yesterday was the first session of the creative writing workshop in the CERESO de Mérida.

It began 18 days later than anticipated due to factors beyond my control. After finally meeting with the directors of the prison on Friday, things are finally underway. Upon arrival, we enter a barred inspection area. A beautiful woman eyes us skeptically as we pass through the gates. She is dressed in shorts and a tank top and holds a plastic shopping bag. Suddenly I’m not exactly sure where I am. The prison is a mirror of the world outside. Edgar,* the educational director, leads us to the classroom in the recreation area, which is populated with lush trees, bright flowers and butterflies.

A bird inside the classroom flaps its wings at a closed window, futilely searching for an exit. It will continue to flap there helplessly throughout the class, until afterwards we point it out to Edgar, who climbs on chairs to usher it into flight and finally freedom. He exercises the same gentle touch with everyone he comes into contact with. Slowly, the women begin to trickle in, in pairs.

The Convocatoria for the class has only been posted that morning. I later ask the women if they will spread the word to their friends. Verónica García Rodríguez, author of Memorias de mujeres en prisión y otros relatos, (2007) and one of my influences for this project, later tells me that I will not receive much support from the prison to publicize my classes and that, when she taught there, she went door to door to their cells to remind them to come to class. I wonder if I can imagine myself doing the same.

The class I am teaching combines the writings of two of my favorite authors, Jorge Luis Borges and Sandra Cisneros. The idea is to read thematically similar pieces, demonstrating how Cisneros develops and changes themes and structures that appear in Borges’s work—and adapts them to her own unique context. Themes we will consider include the body, personal identity, interior versus exterior identities, or the masks that people wear, family and personal mysteries, and voyages of self-discovery. We will also read a story by the great Mexican author Juan Rulfo as well as Mayan myths. The purpose of the workshop is three-fold: cultural exposure, community building, and the use of writing as a tool for self-discovery and realization. Why would women in prison want to participate in a creative writing workshop? Many people have asked me this question. How does it serve them?

To furnish an answer, I can only respond with my own experience. Writing has given me self-knowledge, a creative outlet, and the basis for my career, first in publicity, and now as a professor of literature. I cannot offer assurances beyond my own experience, but for me, writing is the basis of my life. It is as important, for me, as verbal expression. And if it has served me in my life, why shouldn’t it serve others as well? I ignore the voices of those who say literature is useless. To me, it has been everything. Looking around at the bright faces of the six students who now surround me a circle, I can see that they, also, believe in the power of the written word. Rather than feeling depressed or deflated, as I had feared I might feel once inside prison walls, I feel uplifted. I remember the quote from Mario de Andrade: “Toda canción de libertad viene de la cárcel.” All freedom songs come from prison.

The readings for today’s class, whose theme is the body, include Borges’s “Las uñas” and Cisneros’s “Pelos.” After a short meditation exercise, we read and then compare the two texts, and the students notice some of the similarities between them. Julia* points out the resemblance between the two lines, “Cuando yo esté guardado en la Recoleta, en una casa de color ceniciento provista de flores secas y de talismanes,” from “Las uñas” and “cuando [tu madre] hace un campito en su cama aún tibia de su piel, y una duerme a su lado,” from “Pelos.” In these moments, body parts lead to personal experiences, with Borges projecting forward to his own death and Cisneros projecting into the past, to when as a girl she lay by her mother’s side. We talk about how both writers ascribe personality traits to their chosen body parts: Borges’s toenails are “tercos,” “dóciles,” “brutos” and “desconfiados,” while in Cisneros hairs can be “flojos,” or “resbalosos, te escurre de tu mano,” or, like her mother’s, “de rositas en botón, como rueditas de caramelo todo rizado y bonito…oloroso a pan." Before they select their own body parts to write about, I give them the parting instruction to think about how concrete details lead to bigger and more universal themes—as toenails symbolize death in “Las uñas” and hair come to symbolize family love in “Pelos.” After twenty minutes of writing, they were ready to read. I wish I could share their writings here, but they kept their notebooks. Next week, with their permission, I hope to be able to include some of their work in this blog. Texts for Class One: Jorge Luis Borges, “Las uñas,” El hacedor, 1964

Sandra Cisneros, “Pelos,” The House on Mango Street, 1984. (We looked at the pictures in the 1994 bilingual children´s edition, with illustrations by Terry Ibañez, and I explained that, while the stories were originally written for adults, some of them have also found an audience with children, and some of them speak to the child within all of us. I myself read Cisneros as an adult and also know that some day I will also read stories from The House on Mango Street to my children).

Writing assignment: Write about a part of your body, or of someone you love, and its significance, both personal and universal or cosmic. Think about how it connects you with universal themes such as death, rebirth, maternity, family inheritance, etc. *To protect the anonymity of the students and prison employees, names have been changed, except when students explicitly ask to be named. Likewise, photos will not show faces or other identifying elements of the interns.Below are a couple more pictures from the alter in the classroom where the workshop is held. All pictures are taken by the very talented Albert Durán.