Breathing Between the Lines

the long version

In Breathing Between the Lines, the writer returns to poetry, her first love. From childhood, writing poems has been both a refuge and a release through the power of her own imagination. In 1988, however, Martinez's poetry was used against her in a federal indictment for smuggling Salvadoran refugees into the United States. The incriminating poem carried this punch line: "In my country, we sing of a baby in a manger, finance death squads." Seven long months later, she was acquitted. After the trial - "a poet's nightmare, in which words, so full of liberating possibilities, were twisted and used against me" - Martinez's poetry dried up. Years passed before "the miracle" of writing finally brought her reconciliation and a return to sanity from the searing experience. Once again, poetry now drives her life, fills her days, and gives meaning to a world gone crazy.