INTRODUCTION

Taking part in an education for imagination through poetic reading becomes an otherworldly occasion for the use of words, it ponders about image, refreshes the capacity of amazement, contemplative will, immersion in texts, and delight for reading expressed in memories and allows to relive literary imageries through the great poetic souls (Singer, 2006; Perez-Pulido, 2001; Lehmann & Locke, 2007; Rementeria & Miranda, 2014; Dominguez & Lopez, 2014; Botero, 2020).

The creation of programs aimed at introducing inmates to reading and reflection using literature are decisive and necessary; studies conducted in different jails in Latin America account for its asphyxiating environment, which results in psychological implications for inmates, including anxiety, depression, high levels of stress, emotional and self-esteem distress, as well as depersonalization, loss of intimacy, lack of control concerning their own life and absence of expectations (Garcia & Sanchez, 2020; Villalta, Gesteira & Graziano, 2019; Romero, 2019; Bonifazi, 2019; Ojeda, 2016; Camargo, 2019).

In Colombia, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection (2016) reports that depression and anxiety are commonplace in prisons, these derive in abuse of psychoactive substances and aggressive behavior towards other inmates and guards, situations that aggravate psychological disorders. The aforementioned is due to the lack of mental health specialists to service inmates and to the lack of programs aimed at promoting their overall health; this carelessness has triggered risk of suicide in the population of Colombian inmates. According to research by Rubio et al. (2014), this problem has existed since the first decade of the 21^st century, this is also noticeable in prisons around the world, as per the report of the World Health Organization (WHO, 2007), and more recently by (Ceballos et al., 2019), who studied depression in jailed populations: narrative review.

With this in mind, programs that prompt inmates to exercises of introspection and reflection on their lives are critical to lead them into reintegration to society, and also to provide them with recommendations to face their reality. Studies in different prisons have acknowledged the significance of literature and the arts as therapy, driving inmates to imagine themselves in spaces where they feel at ease, idealizing freedom without the violence of many prisons (Camargo, 2018; Garcia & Sanchez, 2020; Marti, Gimeno & Diaz, 2017). For Ariza (2015), literature in unconventional environments such as jails,

(…) is even more valuable, it achieves a more humane link. At the service of these communities, literature becomes a wager to give a voice to those who don’t have it in this society, it allows the creation of spaces for reflection and freedom, especially of people in conditions of vulnerability . (p.193)

Therefore, the reason for this article –based on philosophy of art in poetic language– is to visualize applicable aspects of artistic practice of poetic reverie in inmates of different prisons, undertaken as speech of the depths of feeling, of the soul’s intimacy, the secret and unspeakable, of the supreme language that resides in sincere reflection, leading to a catharsis of aesthetic will in artistic and poetic manifestations (Romero, 2018). The intention is to answer questions such as: What happens with experiences in prison in terms of effectiveness to reform individuals’ inclusion to a society that is skeptical about a likely change in their lives’ projects? Can poetry provide an aesthetic experience to inmates –aside from an elevated plane of lightness– signifying inmates’ tranquility or resilience to attain a connection with poetry, to drive self-knowledge?

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Poetic reverie is an internal task of self-discovery conducted in the process of self-knowledge through the art of catharsis, it becomes an instrument of language that seeks to release creativity by unfolding the imaginary journey of expressing emotions through words (Bachelard, 1982, 1965; Yañez et al., 2009; Pierron et al., 2016; Gutierrez, 2017; Valverde, 2002). Catharsis in writing is used as a practice to tap into self-knowledge, in it, a person experiences an emotional and spiritual cleansing to release creativity through imagination (Aristoteles, 1948). Amidst this process, intimate writing is created, it is considered a record of aesthetic appreciation arising from sessions in which participants (through reverie and encounters with words) find themselves in an imaginary world that widens their perception of the world, using constant questioning and looking for answers that impact their vital praxis.

Directed poetic reverie is a way to explore imagination with a series of image metamorphoses that arise from poetic verse contemplation and internal experiences of the poem’s words. It is characterized by ascendant rhythms projected in healthy, energetic images that invigorate and strengthen the listener’s stance on contemplation as an indispensable asect in the task of reverie. Poetic reverie aims at more than just teaching, integrating and memorizing a verse, it intends to use educational experience as an immersion into discovery of possible imaginary worlds, filled with amazement for the process and its cathartic outcome, reflecting people’s aesthetic and spiritual experience as an invitation to dream.

Authors such as Piñones and Nuñez (2010) assert that the use of literature and poetry in particular, allows readers or listeners in confining environments to assume a stance of reflection from a critical and understanding perspective of “their individual and collective realities, and generates shifts in their personal and social relationships and contexts” (p.20). Also, according to Yepes and Mira (2013), developing literature-based programs with populations that are vulnerable or in hostile territories results in an internal search –an introspective exercise– of the reason for their prior actions using reflection to encourage the redefinition of behaviors towards oneself and others.

The significance of rethinking the educational system aimed at inmates –aimed at reforming these individuals to be reinserted in society– is the reason why this article highlights the practices followed by Fundacion Casa de Hierro with this population in the department of Atlantico. The need to improve educational models targeted at training cultured citizens is an attempt to build a culture of peace, which in this case, projects the aesthetic of existence as an ethical way of coexisting with otherness (Foucault, 1975, 1990, 2003, 2016).

METHODOLOGY

This study is based on non-structured sessions that took place with inmates in jails in the department of Atlantico (Colombia), as well as on participant observation conducted by Fundacion Casa de Hierro in the year 2013. Throughout this time, researchers organized monthly sessions in different prisons with the voluntary attendance of local and international poets, and managed by Fundacion Casa de Hierro, in charge of requesting the corresponding permits in the prisons mentioned ahead.

Therefore, the research has a qualitative approach with grounded theory methodology, the purpose is to understand meanings attributed to poetry sessions by inmates inquired into, establishing a relationship between the concept of poetic reverie and reflections collected in non-structured interviews; a total of twenty male and female inmates participated and some of their testimonies (in line with the research’s interests) were selected for analysis.

Information collection was done using recorded testimonies deriving from a reflection after the poetic reading; this way and taking into account the inmates’ experience with poetic reading, results were triangulated along with the compiled theory. Participants’ identities were protected using pseudonyms.

Development and Discussion

Overall Aspects of Fundacion Casa de Hierro and its Work With Inmates

Fundacion Artistica Casa de Hierro is a non-profit institution founded in 2003, it believes art offers a possibility to build a human and sensitive citizen culture. The project called Poetas bajo palabra is a cultural experience in association with the Ministry of Culture, the Secretary of Culture of Barranquilla and Banco de la Republica, since 2006, it has generated spaces for monthly encounters based on words, drawing attention to the literary work of new voices with local, national and international track records with the goal of turning Barranquilla into a poetic city, building citizen aesthetic with literary dissertations that back the audiences’ training.

As part of its activities, Fundacion Casa de Hierro visits jails with guest poets to set up word sharing sessions. A discussion on poetry appreciation is followed by a written exercise. At the end of each cycle, a book is published with the year’s recollections; this work focuses on the recollection of 2013. Fundacion Casa de Hierro contributes to the city’s poetic memory, the construction of dialog and coexistence scenarios in prisons, with poetic words as chances for encounters and self-discovery.

This social work has been undertaken with men and women in the department of Atlantico, who have been charged with misdemeanors and imprisoned in different jails, and who are far from or close to social reinsertion, all of them decided to voluntarily participate.

Description of the Visited Jail Environments

Tackling this topic comes as a result of the experiences lived by one of the authors who is a member of Fundacion Casa de Hierro, specifically of the opportunities that arose from visiting some prisons. It is necessary to mention that no prior relationship existed with the prisons or the inmates, nonetheless, these brief visits were so intense that they drove the will to write this article.

Two guest poets and two members of the Fundacion’s team (director Fabiola Acosta and Mauricio Murillo, in this case) visited the jails in the morning. They were taken to a room where the inmates were expecting them and they proceeded to socialize the event. Poets were then introduced and they began an exercise of poetic reading focused on reverie. Poets introduced themselves to the inmates as sailors and travelers to imaginary places, as seen in this verse of the poem entitled El Viaje:

¡Asombrosos viajeros! ¡Cuántas nobles historias / leemos en vuestros ojos profundos como el mar! / Mostradnos los estuches de tan ricas memorias, / Esas mágicas joyas, que astros y éteres forman. // ¡Deseamos viajar sin vapor y sin velas! / Para aliviar el tedio de nuestros calabozos / Haced pasar encima de nuestras almas tensas,/ Vuestros propios recuerdos con marcos de horizontes. // ¿Qué habéis visto, decid? (Baudelaire, 2013, p.91).

Guest poets then engage in poetic reading focused on reverie. These are the results of the activity Palabras con alas (Words With Wings) with female and male inmates throughout different sessions in jails located in the department of Atlantico. This activity entails participants to write messages, personal creations, impressions, feelings, ideas and memories. Said impressions were driven by poetry, these examples evidence the effectiveness of poetry used to share and encourage inmates’ creation with a reflexive tone and an aesthetic and ethical attitude to verify their mood and understand the status of their transformation aimed at social reintegration.

Per the objective of Fundacion Casa de Hierro, this is an inclusive process that seeks to inspire by reading visions of the world, with sensitivity, coexistence and reconciliation of those who are imprisoned for different reasons. The images suggested by the poem heal memories and settle hardships, words act as vital energy that transforms the brain. “We evoke healthy, energetic dreams, work reveries, and add verbs, connected words, poems of energy. We propose images of freedom instead of advice” (Bachelard, 1982, p.24). Inmates discover the importance of a personal life project that steers them to personal and social integration in terms of citizen training, making them aware of themselves concerning processes of identity construction based on the sense of life and regarding individuals as interpreters of their own existence (Millan, 2017).

On the day of the event, attendees listen to inmates’ appreciations, are amazed and start believing in the possibility of effective change through poetry. Readers of the book Poetas bajo palabra confirm this possibility. Direct participants (poets and the team of Fundacion) observe how these sessions and reading the poems assist in a catharsis of their emotions, meditation of their thoughts, truth of their feelings. From there, the experiment develops individuals’ poetic training.

Analysis of Testimonies From the Point of View of Poetic Reverie

Art is a medium of transformation that is capable of directly impacting society, explaining the role of poetry in personal change processes and its role in culture for social development, prompts its applicability (Garcia & Sanchez, 2020). Artists must recognize its value in the fundamental aspect of society’s harmonization, and recognize strategies to display the trade of poetic reverie based on literary programs implemented at national level (Ariza, 2015). In the case of poetry, the power of words emanates from imagination, poets play a part in the process of symbolic reparation, in a society in need of discharging emotions, making catharsis, listening to the wisdom of poets amidst resilience processes (Gras, 2016).

Establecimiento Carcelario Justicia y Paz de Barranquilla Carcel Modelo (May 2013)

Guest Poet: Federico Santodomingo

Luna Abril

En este sitio / Mi alma fue herida a mil / Pero tomando como Kayham. / Volví a la vida / En luna abril / Donde bebemos todo / Porque el trago amargo como la vida / Nos sabe a miel.

Following the line of Hadot’s (2006) views on practical philosophy which identifies epicurious or stoic trends as therapy of the soul in the art of living with existential discomfort, we enter the self poetic reverie as means to access self-knowledge, in order to heal wounds, learn about places that bring grave memories to life, life and death situations, complex experiences that resolve beyond the analysis of language as discourse (Foucault ,1990; Bachelard, 1982, 1965; Yañez et al., 2009; Pierron et al., 2016; Gutierrez, 2017; Valverde, 2002).

The session thus aims at the internal experience of words, at an active reading to extract what has not been said in the text, reimagining the verse and loading it into the poetic memory; after reading the fragment, inmate Waldi stated: “I walked the verses of poets, their words reminded me that I must live” (Waldi, personal communication, May 12^th, 2013).

Also, inmate JuanK emphasized on the implications of being in jail and the way in which he has been conditioned by being there, in opposition to the poet’s words, who believes the adversity of lockdown as a moment for reflection and redefinition of existence, considering that: “I have been through sad things in my life, sometimes sadness drowns me. Sadness is these four walls that accompany me in solitude” (JuanK, personal communication, May 12^th, 2013).

Guest Poet: Paula Romero

A un preso

Hogar que se hace propio cuando no tienes salida. / La añoranza enreda las arterias de la fe. // Sentimiento esculpido desde la lejanía y la distancia, / Desde la condena que encierra el remordimiento y la sed. // Propósito de barrotes caídos, / Lágrimas derramadas por la culpa que roe mis huesos.

The aesthetic of prison spaces resembles dreariness. The rhythm of life is a conviction in itself, character must overcome its condition in order to survive and transcend towards reinsertion and lack of repetition (Foucault, 1975). Prison cells cancel privacy or intimacy; on the contrary, serious overcrowding in prisons keeps growing year after year (Ariza, 2015). Jail bars, multiple people in small spaces affected by Caribbean heat lead to a cathartic confession of their imprisonment’s tragedy (Aristoteles, 1948). Art therapy’s poetic reverie seeks to reach a catharsis through writing in order to decrease risks related to anxiety and depression that are conducive to inclusion and reincorporation into social life (Dominguez & Lopez, 2014).

During their time in jail and while they wait to be released, inmates’ minds and hearts cross the borders of their walls with poetic reverie. From this encounters, poets and inmates engage in an aesthetic experience that awakens their desire to overcome themselves (Singer, 2006). Artistic interventions such as writing poetry in prisons, cause a phenomenological perception by the observer that can be applied in the self-criticism capacity (Barbosa et al., 2016). Therefore, as understood by inmate Altair, reading this poem made him realize: “I want freedom. Today poetry made me feel free” (Altair, personal communication, May 12^th, 2013), expanding the poetic event to an introspective exercise, given that

Poetry is a speaker for the soul that finds and builds a different world, it creates its new dwelling. As poetry has its origins in imagination, its essence allows it to alter conventional meanings and dive into a psychology that gives new senses. Senses that cab ne found deep in reverie. (Martinez, 2017, p.70)

This way, by introducing a reflection on existence, poetry is the light that shines in the depths of beings and is released when one has contemplated and explored its depths, shadows, evil, sourness, when having a: “¡Sombrio dialogo de un alma / Convertida en propio espejo!” (Baudelaire, 2013, p.24). Reverie turns language into an instrument that enables invigorating the work of art that is a poem, an experience of intimacy with words, a reimagination. From the poetic approach, there is a glance that connects readers with their abysms, with the depth of their conscience, their underground passions and the ethereal heights of their being (Villamil, 2009). This is manifested by inmate Alfalfa, who considers that listening to the poetic fragment was liberating and healing, since “each word uttered in that place healed me. My spirit is free” (Alfalfa, 2013, personal communication, May 2013).

Centro de Re-educacion para el joven infractor “El Oasis” (June 2013)

Guest Poet: Andres Uribe

Cazador

Cazador de los sueños ten cuidado / No sucumbas al sueño que persigues: / Mátalo o mátate, pero vuelve / Con los ojos abiertos.

The poem Cazador retrieves the autonomy of the dreamer, it focuses imagination on a dream that is pursued, yearned, longed for. The oneiric drama between life and death, the invitation to be reborn with awakened senses. According to Foucault (2003), reverie was used by the Greeks as a technique of self-care and self-knowledge, apart from the experiences taking place in the world of dreams. This practice leads to a junction between the study of reverie as technology of the self between two French philosophers Bachelard and Foucault, with geophilosophy in common as the line of thought that characterized the last part of their lives (Martinez, 2017). Inmate Altair’s reflection is noteworthy, he stated after the poem was read: “I have been through sad things in my life, sometimes sadness drowns me. Sadness are these four walls that accompany me in solitude” (Altair, personal communication, June 9^th, 2013).

Guest Poet: Kirvin Larios

Registros

Veo tus ojos: / Señales / De un eco más lejano // Veo tus ojos nuevamente: / Tú y el espejo quebrados frente a ti / Este es el primer acto de renuncia: / Un permanente sosiego / Dentro de cosas dispuestas / Que quisieran decirte adiós.

Poet Kirvin references the senses, eyes not as organs, but as a phenomenological view that can see signs and feel echoes from far away, pupils as mirror-image where souls contemplate their divine element. The reflection of oneself in others provides this dual relationship inmate-poet with an aesthetic experience that feeds creativity in writing impressions and feelings arising from their encounter (Villamil, 2009); it is necessary to consider Foucault’s thoughts:

The soul cannot get to know itself without contemplation in a similar elements, a mirror. Thus, the divine element needs to be contemplated. Through this divine contemplation, the soul will be able to discover its ground rules for behavior and political action. (1990, p.59)

The spiritualization of the most violent experiences, the catharsis of suffering through writing, reaches a state of resilience that helps symbolic reparation. In this context, the poetical language knits in its net of images and sensations, this metamorphosis of psyche confronts their lack of freedom. Understanding poetic language in self-identification processes through the experience of poetry’s virtues in deep dialogs with the soul takes inmates to a state of confession and to express the drama of their existence, poetry seeks liberation (Ducellier, 2019).

In a different way, reverie intends to awaken the senses, to go back to the moments in which bad decisions were made, thus, based on their experiences, inmates acknowledge the value of truth that comes with failure, as explained by Airtoon Blr: .life teaches us through mistakes” (Airtoon Blr, personal communication, June 19^th, 2013). Life’s learning sometimes begins in the wandering path, experience in decision-making can provide the wisdom needed for closing cycles, giving up on certain practices, and finding another way.

Centro de Rehabilitacion Femenino “El Buen Pastor” (July and August 2013)

Guest Poet: Carlos Polo

Lamento del Sur

Vengo cargando este dolor azul, las heridas abiertas, algunas decepciones, esta vieja Gibson de aire que solea un llanto asincopado y lento.

In July, two poets from Barranquilla led the poetic reverie; in this session they read poems about wounds’ pain, fear of starting over. The catharsis opens the bottom of the soul by writing about intimate things, secrets, revealing the unspeakable, what is often unsaid on a daily and monotonous basis. This is where the power of words becomes an active part of resilience and transformation processes. According to Pizarnik (1972, cited in Moia, 1972), it has been said that “the poet is the great therapist. In that sense, the poetic task implies an exorcism, conjure and repair. Writing a poem is repairing the fundamental wound, the tear. Because we are all wounded” (p.1). In the process of closing those open wounds, healing pain resembles liberty, it reminds us of spiritual blue skies. The load of dragging a crime, the awareness of pain caused to others entails carrying a load that is heavier than being in jail. Reaching a true state of freedom is what this inmate suggests: “each person’s freedom does not understand about walls or chains, but about an emotional state that needs to be fulfilled by each one (La Dieguez, personal communication, July 24^th, 2013).

Guest Poet: Nora Carbonell

A una mujer que ha tocado el miedo

El miedo es una suicida que toma su veneno preferido / Frente a la debilidad de su testigo / […] Castigo planeado minuciosamente es el miedo / […] El miedo se parece a la ira, soga / Que se anuda a tu garganta y te fija las manos a los costados del cuerpo. / Suenan los pasos del perseguidor detrás de tu espalda, / No voltees, puede ser la muerte que ha llegado / Aunque la detestes porque a ti te gusta la vida / Con sus contradicciones, / Sus miradas torvas, sus delicias. / Vence al miedo. Disimula, atemoriza al verdugo, / Sepulta el temblor y sacude el llanto.

Many artists have found their art to be a means to liberate their experience, of capturing events and transform experiences’ perception. People who have lived through trauma usually develop fear of experiencing a similar impact, of opening the wound again. Using the pain in their writing is a way of putting the pain to rest. Reading the inmates’ catharsis allows confirming the release of their creative potential. Writing comes from the fibers of the heart, blood-infused ink fosters a state of knowledge of a subject’s identity (Romero, 2019).

In a society that is distraught by multiple and fast-paced wounds, poetry reachers the depths of the self and touches secret wounds. The personal need to ease the pain, liberate trauma, experience solace and find a state of repose, has driven many artists to find a way to release their experiences, capture events and transform experiences through their art (Zurbano, 2007). Self-care through poetic reverie’s technology of the self produces a catharsis that leads to self-knowledge. Unleashing pain with writing favors a state of resilience and its consequential mood; the next female inmate has reached happiness with reverie and she has been transported far from the place she is in: “happiness is not found in the place we are, but within each human being” (Janet, personal communication, July 24^th, 2013).

A review of this testimonial literature would serve psychological studies in the reconstruction of an inmate’s personal story, since it is a knowledge process that connects institutions (the penal system) with educational social programs, which comprise the process of reformation and reincorporation to society (Garcia & Sanchez, 2020). Concerning the inmates, there has been a local inquiry into how the education for resocialization has taken place. An interesting article about criminal responsibilities of people in prison convicted of murder, applied the R-CRAS technique (a question-based interview) and it clearly identified reserachers’ difficulties to integrate an inmate’s self-knowledge content:

At this point, it is worth mentioning the study conducted by Altamirano in 2013, it states that from the point of entering prison and throughout their conviction, inmates’ psychological needs are not met, showing voids in this specific point. The study confirms our results in the Colombian context and manifests the shortcomings of prisons in this regard, as mentioned before (Mebarak, Quiroz & Jimenez, 2018, pp.201-202).

These voids could be filled with poetry, contributing particular information when analyzing inmates’ profiles. Poetic catharsis meets forensics with an assessment that goes beyond aesthetics to the ethics of being. Reading promotes reflection, instrospection and self-absorption that feeds from memories and puts them in writing; it allows inmates to confirm their psychological state in the text’s analysis. This is what happens when identifiying the idea of life in inmates’ catharses, this indicates a change of perspective in terms of ethical behavior: “When we think about the good things that life offers us then we can move on, but the bad things bring irreversible consquences” (Yoshira, personal communication, July 24^th, 2103).

Guest Poet: Jairo Castillo

Un solo punto

En un solo punto la luz cabe. / Alguien da pasos, / Cae al extravío, naufraga, / Ante el fragor de su estallido.

Poetry is the light that comes from the depths of the soul, an illumination that is transformed by language’s catharsis. Guided poetic reverie is the art of exploring imagination through the metamorphosis of images that arise from meditating poetic verses, from the internal experience of words, from the peom’s verse that twists into becoming an assent, looking for the vision looming over oneself in the poetry of heights. “Height is more than a symbol, the person seeking it can imagine it with all of his/her power, which is the engine of our psychic dynamism, and recognize that it si materially dynamically moral” (Bachelard, 1982, p.81).

With the purpose of elevating imagination to dynamic heights that redirect the course of emotions, in connection with adaptability to a complex situation and with the capacity to sustain self-control applying emotions’ intelligence, as articulated herein, along with imnates’ resilience experiences in the literary record if their existential poetry that shifts their feelings’ perspective from unreal to real in terms of awareness of the facts, the following is a reflection of inmate Monika:

Hey you! Every morning you are finding youself, have you forgotten to cheer on the arrival of your son, who with open arms graces your soul with some peace. You who claim to lose hope at dusk behind bars, I am telling you: does light give you no clarity? Teach your heart that even in darkness, it will soon be dawn. (Monika, personal communcation, August 13^th, 2013).

Guest Poet: Javier Alvarado

Enterradero de El Cipián

En este enterradero todos tenemos epitafio / Una oscura canción que nos persigue desde el pasado hasta el / Presente.

In August, the sessions were conducted in the same penitentiary. This verse by the poet from Panama evokes the time in which life unravels, listening to a song that refers to the past, present and the vision of a project that gets new hints concerning an in-depth knowledge of the self. When philosophy is applied to life itself, it is understood as an art of the being’s existence, of inhabiting earth, being in it, understanding oneself and others (Hadot, 2006). Moreover, finding the vital sense of turning life into a work of art, reflected in the subject as an artist of the self, in the assessment of qualities through therapeutic writing that addresses sensations, impressions and apreciations of aesthetic aspiration that refer to the subject’s experiences (Foucault, 2016).

Inmate Prada focuses her poetic views on ontology of the self, she reflects on past events and acknowledges a lack of vision of the future. Her present makes her value her liberty and reconsider her old claim. “Oh God! Outside we used to complain about everything, we did not look to the future. Complaints are just experiences that fill us with wisdom” (Stefany, personal communication, August 13^th, 2013).

In a different way, in the prison’s library, an inmate finds texts and authors that extend an invitation to literature’s imaginary worlds, who become a healing experience in the act of reading and knowledge about the sense of life. Bibliotherapy is a discipline that appeared in the 20^th century to overcome trauma resulting from World War II (Garcia & Sanchez, 2020). In the case of the sessions Poetas bajo palabra, treatment is transmitted through poetic reading’s oral expression, developing the art of listening and imagining the poet’s words.

Establecimiento Penitenciario de Mediana Seguridad y Carcelario de Barranquilla y Reclusion Especial (Penitenciaria El Bosque) (September 2013)

Guest Poet: Emmanuel Simard

Esto desgarró el vientre.

Me embriago de accidentes improbables de color negro, / De hilos eléctricos, de cada poste hundido, / Cada estandarte estrellada. / Los reclusos llaman forzosamente una herida.

The poetic image of a wound is recurring throughout the sessions. Inmates have many stories pertaining scars, some have healed and others have not. Focusing on their lives entails seeing the tragedy of their existences’ drama. Aside from the crimes, the common denominator of inmates’ lives is filled with wounds, pain, lack of opportunities, absences and dysfunctional families. Inmates perceive this lack of social inclusion; the poet’s attention makes an inmate write the following: “Today, some people that remember we are and we exist visited us” (Anonymous1, personal communication, September 11^th, 2013). The exercise of reading to others and of poetic reverie leads to therapeutic writing to aid healing through catharsis (Dominguez & Lopez, 2018).

Healing is also a call for attention. The self asks to grow, to elevate, but to this impulse, the weight of the world is a drag. What Bachelard intends to emphasize is that our soul has an impulse that is inclined towards reverie. Soul and reverie guarantee a break, a wellbeing that interacts with reality but that is far from it. Without said interaction, the soul would get sick, reality needs irreality to be endurable. (Martínez, 2017, p.70)

Considering the difficulties of enduring overcrowding situations, poetry acts in terms of unrealness; it looks for resilience to deal with confinement. Therefore, the next inmate thanks the poets who have visited them, leaving a footprint of aesthetic experience in their transformation. “I thank God for these experiences that have helped me move forward, I thank the poets that have made this moment happy, I liked the poem of Puerto Colombia’s pier” (Anonymous 2, personal communication, September 11^th, 2013).

In the search for an autonomous imaginary journey, the poet is the agitator that dares to imagine, guiding the reverie of liberation, which comes with oscillating rythms of rise and fall (Ducellier, 2007). With the purpose of providing independence to the imagining individual in the spiritual and intimate experience, the change of looking for an aesthetic sense of existence, a contemplative meditation of his experiences, inmate J.J. stated: “There is no better dawn than having a meeting to express internal ideas that show the entrails of knowledge” (J.J., personal communication, September 11^th, 2013).

Guest Poet: Margarita Galindo

Incierta

No sé si soy mujer o sombra / Que camina / Sobre un jardín de olvido. / […] Si soy la indecisión / De la llovizna, / o el beso que se da / En la despedida / […] Me busco y no me encuentro, / Se me apaga la imagen / Y estas manos se dudan / Como si ni siquiera / Tuvieran la certeza / De su forma.

The poetic images are open: these sensibilization processes open minds or aesthetic perspectives on onself. Inmates’ writing capacities (beyond their poetic strength) express their daily reality; inmate Jose wrote: “I have lived sad and delightful hours, which is why my verses are dusk and dawns” (Jose, personal communication, September 11^th, 2013). Writing helps you read yourself, listen to the voice of thought, gives a glimpse into the poetic being that lives deep inside.

Eveyday, the work of acknowledging oneself in the present with a poetic view, as a decisive subject of development, constitutes a significance that can be transposed to Colombia’s overall population, which could use of art as a tool for self-knowledge, exploration and symbolic reparation (Trillos, 2015).

For its part, other studies verify the need for an education that focuses on building a new life project. The significance of these sessions reivindicate the triumph of art as healing experience (Garcia & Sanchez, 2020). Poets become catalyzers of emotions; it does not heal, it assists participants’ self-healing processes clearing up things that hamper the self’s psychic future by proposing a freeing poertic reverie. The need to make progress with these sessions as meaningful experiences that build up resilience is evinced in inmates’ thank you expressions, as follows: “Thank you for this moment, may God protect you. These moments make us stronger” (Javier, personal communication, September 11^th, 2013).

Guest Poet: Ubaldina Diaz

Amigo de las mañanas de matemáticas

Este extremo olor desagradable pegado / A los hilillos de mis fosas nasales / Obtura el mágico botón que detona / Un raudal de canto- ira amor y miedo / Agazapados bajo la tolda sonriente / De unos ojos que preguntas: / ¿Cómo fue que perdiste el camino?

Emotional intensity is a poetic trigger in itself. Using pain, hate in writing proposals pertaining unpleasantness, ugliness, in which “nature and spirit have to be expressed in its dramatic depth, ugly, evil and diabolic cannot miss” (Rosenkranz, 1992, p.11). Cathersis reached through writing entails an emotional purge by releasing thoughts of hate that feed rage. This means rethinking their lack of self-control, which, articulated with their conviction, evinces inmates’ existential poetry about their lives behind bars, as this testimony by inmate Mañe shows:

Today I dive into my existence’s loneliness. / I don’t know what will happen tomorrow / Will I fell the same or worse. / Suffering invades me entirely, / Memories’ nostalgia torments me / Better times will come, but when? It is sad to know that everything will be the same by dawn / Same loneleiness / Same suffering / This scream that drowns in my throat because it can come out, / I must wait until dawn to know what will happen. (Mañe, personal communication, September 11th, 2013)

Inmates aim for catharsis as a way to lighten their pain, of shifting the perspective of theit thoughts. A state of ataraxia, of imperturbability, is not achieved entirely but gradually. Therefore, the concept of resilience comes into play; resilience can be defined as the capacity to remain stable amongst the chaos of emotions to redirect the course of emotions.

Establecimiento Carcelario y Reclusion Especial Sabanalarga (October 2013)

Guest Poet: Margarita Velez

Del polvo y el olvido

Cuando me haya marchado / Y solo quede el polvo / alguien por mí quedará en esta rueda / repitiendo cada cosa, cada acto. / […] Cuando me haya marchado / Y todo se repita en otro, habré resucitado sin gloria / Del polvo y el olvido. / Vendré a treparme en otra mortalidad dolorosa / A usurpar otro espacio y otro aliento.

In the dynamic of being light or heavy, the poetry of elevation is gravitational, this two-way oscillation towards the heights or lows of reverie leads to poetic image’s sensations and these act as a poetic view of man’s questioning. Based on “a thesis of imagination as a fundamental psychic value, it suggests this problem in an opposite way: it questions how images of elevation prepare for a moral life” (Bachelard, 1982, p.11).

These poetic images of freedom aim at transforming individuals, encouraging their inclusion to society, as expressed by poet Hölderlin thorugh “poetically existing in earth”, which is reivindicated by Heidegger (1960) in awakening the poetic will as an aptitude of the ethos. A life aesthetic that is added to the category of universal citizenship. “My expression is that I want to change, I want to have a healthy and beautiful life” (A.A., personal communication, October 2013).

Philosophizing about oneself with poetic sense and thus establishing a dialog with a part of oneself, is more than self-criticism, it becomes self-aesthetic that consummates in writing. Thinking about the metamorphoses that take place in the sphere of poetic experience, allows humans to understand themselves with exercises such as the art of listening, meditating on the poet’s teachings, expanding the capacity to reflect on questionas and answers that are vital to their existence, and capturing catharsis in the healing writing therapy that implies a state of resilience. We are all insensitive to some extent, picturing ourseles as free means recovering some sensitivity. To get to know oneself and understand the world, consciousness is subjected to the analysis and experimentation of spiritual exercises, or to technology of the self, formulated by poetic reverie.

CONCLUSION

Exploring the triangular relationship between the ideas of poetic reverie of liberation, catharsis and resilience, their usefulness in symbolic reparation processes, poetic reverie can be considered as a tool of language of liberation and in the display of ontological exploration of archetypes through words. It becomes an internal occupation of self-discovery in which individuals experience emotional and spiritual cleansing. Catharses of the self have therapeutic purposes by attaining solace of emotional burdens.

Knowing oneself as philosophic principle, taking care of oneself as ethical principle, means thinking about the sense of life. The intention of applied philosophy is to connect study with life’s plot. The awareness of self-discovery is a form of taking care of oneself, an art that defines a choice in the way of being, a road that is permanently accompanied by an internal dialog of continuous learning, put to the test by practicing resilience.

To get to know more about oneself, reverie unlocks communication between the depths of the being and his or her consciousness. One of the goals of poetry is to look for the essence in the details of things, events, instants that are rooted in memories, in memories that beat in the heart, in the loneliness of reverie. It is necessary to formulate the catharsis of the writing activity that leads to self-knowledge based on imagination and poetic reverie. Poetry explores the depths of human beings’ sensitive capacities, and manifests it in the intelligence of language, in the will of poetic actions, and in aesthetic tendencies as a way to interpret the psychic dynamism of existences’ poetic ontology, it is a way of inhabiting this world.

The way in which the pedagogical application of poetry is analyzed shows the ways in which it can contribute to citizen culture in search for peace (Mendoza, 2016). Art aimed at symbolic reparation needs to be strengthened with public policies. It is necessary to promote and encourage this educational proposal based on philosophy and poetry applied to society with symbolic reparation processes, considering these poetic exercises as contributions to a culture of peace, showing political and existential commitment that can be transmitted by poetry, and thus turn words into new weapons that feed critical and aesthetical capacities to the events of this bloody century’s protagonists.

Finally, if there is persistent interest to study the philosophy of poetry, the following arise (as posthumous research lines): (I) What is the role of poetry in public policy programs aimed at social development amidst processes of symbolic reparation of armed conflict victims? (II) Can inmates’ writing be another methodology of confession?

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