WEBVTT

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So, I wanted to honor
the laborers who

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are not honored at the time.

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At the time people only
thought about the engineering

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of the Panama Canal, and
how amazing the engineering

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was that you could
connect two oceans.

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It didn't cross their
minds that there

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were men with shovels, digging,
not just a few steam shovels,

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not just a few examples
of powerful machinery,

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but tens of thousands
of men at a time,

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actually cutting through
the Continental Divide,

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transforming mountains
into a canal,

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and the biggest artificial
lake in the world, which

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fills the locks, that lifts
the ships so that the ocean

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level can be matched
between the two oceans.

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If you've been
through that canal,

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it's a job so phenomenal.

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It's hard to imagine it being
done with equipment impossible,

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to imagine it being done
by men with shovels.

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But I'd like to read
just a few poems.

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This is in the voice of
Matteo, a young Cuban boy who

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pretended to be a Spaniard
so that he could get a job.

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Most of the Islanders
were recruited

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on the English speaking islands.

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By far, the vast majority
were Barbadians and Jamaicans.

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But this is a Cuban boy
which I chose to use

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his voice as one of the--

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ones to tell the story.

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I chose it out of
cultural familiarity,

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and because there
were Cubans included.

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The poem is titled "Howlers."

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Ferocious jungle heat
closes in around us

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like the blaze of
a glowing oven,

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the train steams through
deep forest shade

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beneath spidery
brilliant red flowers

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that dangle from sky high
branches like flames.

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Some of the rain shiny leaves
are shaped like green hands,

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others like hearts,
livers, or kidneys,

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making the whole
forest seem like one

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enormous magical creature,
with an endless body

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and a fiery mind.

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