WEBVTT

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I was actually-- I was
actually at quite a crossroads

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at that time in my life.

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I was on welfare.

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I was on general relief.

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And I was applying to
get into law school.

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So I was filling out welfare
applications and law school

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applications at the same time.

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And let me tell you-- and I
think I'm uniquely qualified

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to tell you this--

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the welfare applications
were harder.

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[LAUGHTER]

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It's true.

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The reason was that the
welfare application at least

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the one that I was
dealing with required

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me to document everywhere I'd
been for the past 10 years.

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Why?

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So they could send the
bill to somebody else.

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Whereas the law
school application

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was relatively simple--

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why do you want to
go to law school?

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Well, that's easy--
to get off welfare.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And so that's how I ended
up going to law school,

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because it was easier
than being on welfare.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And while there, in law
school, I began to have what

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you might call flashbacks
to an earlier life.

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I began to compare
the life I had

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come from to the
life I was entering.

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And there was some pretty
startling contrast.

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This is a poem about that.

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It's called "Who Burns for
the Perfection of Paper?"

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"At 16, I worked after
high-school hours

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at a printing plant that
manufactured legal pads.

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Yellow paper stacked seven
feet high and leaning,

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as I slipped cardboard
between the pages, then

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brushed red glue up
and down the stack.

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No gloves.

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Fingertips required for
the perfection of paper,

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smoothing the exact rectangle.

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Sluggish by 9 PM, the hands
would slide along suddenly

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sharp paper and gathers slits,
thinner than the crevices

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of the skin, hidden.

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Then the glue would sting,
hands oozing till both palms

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burned at the punch clock.

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10 years later, in law school,
I knew that every legal pad

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was glued with the
sting of hidden cuts,

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that every open law
book was a pair of hands

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upturned and burning."

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