WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.820 align:middle line:90% This is not paella. 00:00:02.820 --> 00:00:07.290 align:middle line:84% This is what has become of those who remain in Buenos Aires. 00:00:07.290 --> 00:00:10.860 align:middle line:84% This is the ring of a rifle report on the stones, 00:00:10.860 --> 00:00:16.440 align:middle line:84% her hand over her mouth, her husband falling against her. 00:00:16.440 --> 00:00:19.680 align:middle line:84% These are the flowers we bought this morning, 00:00:19.680 --> 00:00:23.820 align:middle line:84% the dahlias tossed on his grave and bells 00:00:23.820 --> 00:00:27.180 align:middle line:84% waiting with their tongues cut out 00:00:27.180 --> 00:00:32.280 align:middle line:90% for this particular silence." 00:00:32.280 --> 00:00:37.530 align:middle line:84% In the autumn, I returned to San Diego. 00:00:37.530 --> 00:00:40.980 align:middle line:84% And I don't know whether to tell the long, the short, 00:00:40.980 --> 00:00:43.740 align:middle line:84% or the very, very shortest version of this story. 00:00:43.740 --> 00:00:49.110 align:middle line:84% But ultimately, I was asked by relatives of Claribel Alegria 00:00:49.110 --> 00:00:53.490 align:middle line:84% to spend my Guggenheim year in El Salvador 00:00:53.490 --> 00:00:55.890 align:middle line:84% rather than do what my friends said. 00:00:55.890 --> 00:00:57.420 align:middle line:84% They said, you have a Guggenheim. 00:00:57.420 --> 00:01:01.080 align:middle line:84% You should go to Paris and write poetry, or at least 00:01:01.080 --> 00:01:02.190 align:middle line:90% New England. 00:01:02.190 --> 00:01:04.590 align:middle line:90% So I didn't. 00:01:04.590 --> 00:01:09.960 align:middle line:84% None of them supported my decision to go to El Salvador. 00:01:09.960 --> 00:01:14.280 align:middle line:84% But it was said to me that I should spend the year there. 00:01:14.280 --> 00:01:17.850 align:middle line:84% And I would work, going from one to another, first 00:01:17.850 --> 00:01:21.960 align:middle line:84% at a rural clinic, and then in a little village. 00:01:21.960 --> 00:01:24.180 align:middle line:84% And I would work beside different people 00:01:24.180 --> 00:01:27.720 align:middle line:90% with different occupations. 00:01:27.720 --> 00:01:30.360 align:middle line:84% And that was told to me that they wanted me to do this 00:01:30.360 --> 00:01:32.880 align:middle line:90% because I was a poet. 00:01:32.880 --> 00:01:38.970 align:middle line:84% And they told me in 1977 that in three to five years, 00:01:38.970 --> 00:01:43.350 align:middle line:84% their country was going to be the beginning of my country's 00:01:43.350 --> 00:01:45.330 align:middle line:90% next Vietnam. 00:01:45.330 --> 00:01:50.100 align:middle line:84% And they asked me if I wanted to see it from the beginning, 00:01:50.100 --> 00:01:53.080 align:middle line:90% from the inside. 00:01:53.080 --> 00:01:57.180 align:middle line:84% And because of the time in which I grew up, of course 00:01:57.180 --> 00:02:00.180 align:middle line:90% I wanted to understand that. 00:02:00.180 --> 00:02:04.110 align:middle line:84% But I didn't quite believe that those things 00:02:04.110 --> 00:02:05.042 align:middle line:90% would come to pass. 00:02:05.042 --> 00:02:07.000 align:middle line:84% And I said, well, what would you like me to do? 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:08.490 align:middle line:90% And they said, nothing. 00:02:08.490 --> 00:02:11.340 align:middle line:84% We want you to learn as much as you can. 00:02:11.340 --> 00:02:14.580 align:middle line:84% And then you can go back to the United States. 00:02:14.580 --> 00:02:18.450 align:middle line:84% And when the war starts, you can explain it to the Americans 00:02:18.450 --> 00:02:20.610 align:middle line:90% why we are fighting. 00:02:20.610 --> 00:02:24.540 align:middle line:84% And I said, you don't understand something. 00:02:24.540 --> 00:02:30.780 align:middle line:84% I said, in the United States, poets are considered flaky. 00:02:30.780 --> 00:02:32.640 align:middle line:90% And we won't have-- 00:02:32.640 --> 00:02:36.090 align:middle line:84% I said, I can't go and explain it to the Americans. 00:02:36.090 --> 00:02:40.080 align:middle line:90% He said, change that. 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:42.300 align:middle line:90% So I don't know. 00:02:42.300 --> 00:02:46.350 align:middle line:84% I stayed two years and, in that period of time, 00:02:46.350 --> 00:02:48.390 align:middle line:90% began working for-- 00:02:48.390 --> 00:02:50.370 align:middle line:90% as a woman named Luisa-- 00:02:50.370 --> 00:02:55.650 align:middle line:84% for human rights organizations and ultimately for Monsignor 00:02:55.650 --> 00:02:59.340 align:middle line:84% Romero and others in the country and had 00:02:59.340 --> 00:03:01.650 align:middle line:90% to leave March 16, 1980. 00:03:01.650 --> 00:03:03.300 align:middle line:90% Well, one of this-- 00:03:03.300 --> 00:03:05.070 align:middle line:84% I'm going to read you a few poems now 00:03:05.070 --> 00:03:08.610 align:middle line:84% and little excerpts of prose from that period. 00:03:08.610 --> 00:03:13.980 align:middle line:84% And the first one is called, "The Visitor." 00:03:13.980 --> 00:03:18.030 align:middle line:84% I was inside a prison called Awa, Japan. 00:03:18.030 --> 00:03:21.300 align:middle line:90% I was inside for 30 minutes. 00:03:21.300 --> 00:03:26.400 align:middle line:84% And I was shown inside Awa, Japan 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:31.530 align:middle line:84% six wooden boxes, one stacked up on top of the other, 00:03:31.530 --> 00:03:33.360 align:middle line:90% three across. 00:03:33.360 --> 00:03:36.420 align:middle line:84% And these boxes were small, about a meter 00:03:36.420 --> 00:03:38.730 align:middle line:84% by a meter by a meter, like a small washing 00:03:38.730 --> 00:03:40.460 align:middle line:90% machine or something. 00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:42.480 align:middle line:90% And they were each padlocked. 00:03:42.480 --> 00:03:44.820 align:middle line:84% And they had openings in them about the size 00:03:44.820 --> 00:03:48.870 align:middle line:84% of a book with chicken wire mesh over the openings. 00:03:48.870 --> 00:03:51.690 align:middle line:84% And in the darkness and stench of that room, 00:03:51.690 --> 00:03:53.880 align:middle line:84% I could see the boxes moving and sounds 00:03:53.880 --> 00:03:55.320 align:middle line:90% coming from within the boxes. 00:03:55.320 --> 00:03:58.860 align:middle line:84% And one of the prisoners said to me, 00:03:58.860 --> 00:04:02.490 align:middle line:84% that's called la oscura the darkness, solitary. 00:04:02.490 --> 00:04:04.650 align:middle line:84% Sometimes men are kept in there one year 00:04:04.650 --> 00:04:06.150 align:middle line:84% and can't move when they come out 00:04:06.150 --> 00:04:08.850 align:middle line:84% because of the atrophy in their muscles, 00:04:08.850 --> 00:04:13.680 align:middle line:84% because they can't stand up or lie down or sit up straight. 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:16.560 align:middle line:84% This is a poem I wrote for the prisoner who 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:20.010 align:middle line:90% gave me the information inside. 00:04:20.010 --> 00:04:25.380 align:middle line:84% "In Spanish he whispers there is no time left. 00:04:25.380 --> 00:04:27.690 align:middle line:84% It is the sound of scythes arcing 00:04:27.690 --> 00:04:32.310 align:middle line:84% in wheat, the ache of some field song in Salvador. 00:04:32.310 --> 00:04:37.020 align:middle line:84% The wind along the prison, cautious as Francisco's hands 00:04:37.020 --> 00:04:42.090 align:middle line:84% on the inside, touching the walls as he walks. 00:04:42.090 --> 00:04:46.410 align:middle line:84% It is his wife's breath slipping into his cell 00:04:46.410 --> 00:04:53.100 align:middle line:84% each night while he imagines his hand to be hers. 00:04:53.100 --> 00:04:55.780 align:middle line:90% It is a small country. 00:04:55.780 --> 00:04:59.500 align:middle line:84% There is nothing one man will not do to another." 00:04:59.500 --> 00:05:00.000 align:middle line:90%