I was actually-- I was actually at quite a crossroads
at that time in my life.
I was on welfare.
I was on general relief.
And I was applying to get into law school.
So I was filling out welfare applications and law school
applications at the same time.
And let me tell you-- and I think I'm uniquely qualified
to tell you this--
the welfare applications were harder.
[LAUGHTER]
It's true.
The reason was that the welfare application at least
the one that I was dealing with required
me to document everywhere I'd been for the past 10 years.
Why?
So they could send the bill to somebody else.
Whereas the law school application
was relatively simple--
why do you want to go to law school?
Well, that's easy-- to get off welfare.
[LAUGHTER]
And so that's how I ended up going to law school,
because it was easier than being on welfare.
[LAUGHTER]
And while there, in law school, I began to have what
you might call flashbacks to an earlier life.
I began to compare the life I had
come from to the life I was entering.
And there was some pretty startling contrast.
This is a poem about that.
It's called "Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper?"
"At 16, I worked after high-school hours
at a printing plant that manufactured legal pads.
Yellow paper stacked seven feet high and leaning,
as I slipped cardboard between the pages, then
brushed red glue up and down the stack.
No gloves.
Fingertips required for the perfection of paper,
smoothing the exact rectangle.
Sluggish by 9 PM, the hands would slide along suddenly
sharp paper and gathers slits, thinner than the crevices
of the skin, hidden.
Then the glue would sting, hands oozing till both palms
burned at the punch clock.
10 years later, in law school, I knew that every legal pad
was glued with the sting of hidden cuts,
that every open law book was a pair of hands
upturned and burning."