PRESUPUESTOS DE LA RESPONSABILIDAD PENAL DE LA PERSONA

In Sabeti’s (2018) work with a creative writing workshop, her reflections on group activities provoke an interesting question: ‘What was it that I was bringing into this space if it was not a poem or short story?’ (eBook). While the question comes from a position of self-conscious awareness about sharing her work with the group members (or rather not sharing as a participant observer), something with which I can relate, her answer shows the complicated interaction that occurs in these types of literary gatherings. She writes:

the reading aloud of the texts (something they valued so highly) creates a community of speakers and listeners … What was it that I was bringing into this space if it was not a poem or short story? I brought myself as reader, writer, and sharer in that community (2018, eBook)

Her focus is on the community, the way in which the poets ‘diverge and align every two weeks’ (ibid), and she questions what sort of criticism and co-writing is accepted, highlighting that possibly the group unites around critiques of ‘technique’ but leaves authorial ‘inspiration’ untouched (ibid).

Speaking of a co-authored chapter book by some of Ireland’s most famous contemporary writers, Wulff (2017) highlights that ‘the point here is that a writer’s creativity does not arise in total isolation’ (15). The goal of the authors she speaks of were to create a co-authored object to

analytically show how intertextuality and the canon influences how writers write. As I hope to have shown, central to the goal of the two talleres is the idea of education and specifically the sharing of techniques of writing through criticism, praise and knowledge of exemplar works of ‘good’ (and bad) literature.

After sharing an erotic short story about a man and woman in a hostel, Marlon received praise from many of the attending Grupo Ariete members. Yet booming with such certainty came Raúl’s voice over the responses: ‘Desnudo… Nunca usen la palabra “desnudo” en la ficción erotica’ [‘Naked… never use the word “naked” in erotic fiction’]. I quickly scribbled it into my notes in the off chance I decided to write an erotic story for the group at some point. Yet, there is more going on in these talleres than just an exchange of literary rules and techniques; there was an exchange of different types of knowledge and experience that people bring with them. When shared, this type of exchange leads to a different type of learning.

Bateson’s (1987) would distinguish the different types of learning as ‘proto- and deuterolearning’ (133). While the rules provided in the taller represent a first stage of

understanding of how to write, they are also learning more than the rules; they are learning the ‘by-products of the learning process’, the acquisition of ‘insight’ or the way in which the writers ‘learn to learn’ (ibid: 131). While the rules discussed in the talleres provide a ‘blueprint’ of what good writing looks like, it is the consideration and application of those rules to each’s unique situation in the construction of their story that speaks to the creative process. As Bateson says, ‘they acquire habits which are more subtle and pervasive than the tricks which the blueprint teaches them’ (ibid: 129). Yet, there is also a sense of creative exchange, which goes beyond learning.

Lena spoke at length with me about her experiences of the taller. She stressed that the most important reason for her participation was the ability to learn from other members. She explained to me her expectations of the workshops: ‘When I read there, I am myself expecting criticism. I need criticism, I need sincere criticism, sincere, pragmatic criticism, formal criticism’. She continued:

‘When you write something, when you read something aloud for people, you expect some reaction and when you hear “that’s so nice”… or even “beautiful” [bonito]… that is the most disgusting word. Run away when you hear that word! It means one of two things: either,

they aren’t taking you seriously or they’re just too closed and are not the reader you want or the reader you were expecting’.

The taller is for critique. It is a place for a writer to present their work and expect engaged feedback. Yet, she clarifies her position, insisting that she does not only go for the criticism and editing help. Echoing what I felt in the taller with regard to my own work, both academic and fictional, she continued on:

‘Listening to the other stories is a growing process for me, as a writer. So I take it really seriously both when I read and when I listen. For me the taller is really important. Even when I know I don’t need it for me. I don’t need it--I write by myself, I edit by myself, maybe slowly, but in a strict way--but the taller is a special space with other minds, with similar interest, but fresh points of view. So for me… I told you, sometimes it is not about the stories, it is… I don’t have a proper way to say this. It is about inspiration, it is like the word goes into your mind and touches something. You feel illuminated. I just write it down immediately, because I cannot lose it. Believe me, when you let it be for a time, you lose it. Because your mind is so full of the things you think you eventually forget. It is an

inspiration for me. I am always learning and feeding myself in the taller.’

I am interested in the duality of experience in the taller. On one level, the criticism and editing help is the purpose of the taller, especially evident in the structured format and feedback routines of Espacio Abierto meetings. Lena speaks also of a second level, though, especially evidenced in the chaotic exchange and dedication to experimentation of Grupo Ariete.

When I spoke to Maya, attendee of both talleres and the organiser for Ariete about a similar topic, she described the talleres as places where your mind works like a sieve [tamice], taking good things from the meetings and letting others flow on. She told me:

When you take your story to the taller, people may say 'this story is very good’. Or on the contrary, ‘how ugly, it’s very bad’. But that is just one thing. In fact, we are not only working on the stories of others. When I arrive at my house [after the taller] I have many ideas and I look forward to writing [tengo muchas ganas sobre todo de escribir]. It is how the process of creation [in the talleres] feels more tangible. Far from learning this or that narrative technique or how to compose stories, what the taller offers is one way to access the panorama of young Cuban writers. It is an accessible kitchen.

Maya’s cooking metaphor (the kitchen and the sieve) seems to perfectly describe the atmosphere of

ingredients and resources. What you make depends on you as much as the resources that are available in the room at that time. Describing the space of the taller as an ‘accessible kitchen’, Maya is speaking of potential: creative potential and collaborative potential. It also resonates nicely with Lena’s description of inspiration in the talleres as an act of feeding and being fed. Like Maya, her imagery is cooperative and collaborative. You are bringing something to the taller and you are taking from the others in the room. It was something that I felt as well when the critiques

presented of André’s work led me to a different level of interaction, one in which the discussion of his work prompted me to reflect on what I could do with my work. Being in the taller that day made me want to write. In fact, it gave me my story and made me want to write it.

To return to Sabeti (2018), she conducts research with creative writers who situate their workshops in gallery spaces. They write creative works based on paintings they see, but, as she notes, the works they create do not come singularly from looking at these paintings, but rather from a ‘matrix of relations’ (Sabeti 2018, citing Ingold). For example, speaking in particular of the way one interlocutor describes the process of writing a poem, Sabeti notes, this poem comes not only from studying the painting in question, but also from her interlocutor’s ‘past, her role as a mother … the effects of visiting Mitte … We might say that one artwork reminded her of this event – a feeling – in her own life’ (ibid). Sabeti also notes that her interlocutor’s way of writing the poem is tied up with her awareness of herself as writer and what constitutes ‘acceptable literary form’ (ibid). The writers then take their work into the workshop where they receive criticism and suggestions from the other participants, a process which another interlocutor defines as ‘making something, in whatever way, making it alongside other people’ (ibid). Sabeti argues that the editorial input of the other writers changes and contributes to the works presented. This leads her to note that ‘This class is not just a meeting of people; it is also a meeting of texts, of texts and people, and sometimes (though not always) of texts and artworks’ (ibid). The idea of a workshop as ‘an accessible kitchen’ makes central the acts of mutual and reciprocal creativity in workshop spaces.

On one of the lackadaisical, summer Saturday meetings of Grupo Ariete, Raúl decided to share one of his stories. As the asesor [advisor] of this group, he does not share his own work often. He read the first chapter of a book he was working on and went on to explain the rest. He described the shape of the book as unacaja china [a Chinese box] and attributed his idea for the form to a

woman who had presented in the taller before I arrived. She had written about a story about a caja china. After the meeting, I asked him to explain further. He developed his idea from listening to a story shared by this woman. He explained that as she described the intricacies of the particular object, it made him ‘think of a story in the shape of caja china’. He continued:

I started thinking about the story inside the story, how you could open up one door and find something else inside. I knew the form must have already been used so I thought of a structure based on the idea of caja china… but a new structure. The stories would be about the Revolution. Every ten years of the Revolution was a small datagram. One story of the sixties, the seventies, the eighties for instance, but the stories would not end. [They were connected but not self-contained.] Her idea was the idea that generated mine. The feedback for that story gave me the vision to do it. That is, you are not stealing the idea. But my idea came from a certain element of hers. Right? This is what I say [in the talleres]. That they can also use ideas from each other.

In the case of this final example, Raúl shows the layers of connection at work in these meetings. The idea of a Chinese box was introduced through a woman in the taller, through one of her stories. While the trope of the Chinese box appears in a number of classic works of literature both fictional and nonfictional (see Plato’s Symposion, Shelley’s Frankenstein and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness for example), it was presented in a moment when it resonated with possibility for Raúl. Aware that the form of the object had been translated into story format before, Raúl was looking to learn the rules of the shape in order to change it and to make it new again. The story Raúl presented, while distinctly his own, existed due to a network of intertextual references of the box – what not to repeat – and the unknown personal experience of the woman who brought the idea into the room in the first place.