WEBVTT

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One more poem directly
out of childhood.

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This one's called Tobacco Farms.

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I think it was about 13, I
forged my birth certificate.

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Had to be about 14 to
take a job at the time,

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to get a work permit.

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And my friend and I forged
our birth certificates

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and got a job in tobacco farms.

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I lived in western New
England, in the Pioneer Valley,

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and they used to grow
tobacco, cheap tobacco

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for the outside
covering of cigars.

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And they grew under
these enormous fields--

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they grew in enormous fields
under nets, gauze nets.

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So you're just driving
down a country road

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and you see a field
just covered by gauze.

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The gauze nets were about, oh,
10 or 12 feet above the ground.

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They were held up by poles
that we call bend posts,

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and we got paid by
how much we picked.

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And we'd get paid by a certain
number of pennies per bend.

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The experience of
working there--

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I worked there for a couple of
summers, two or three summers--

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it was really good for me.

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It got me out of
my neighborhood,

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get to meet people.

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You know, guys and girls
from different neighborhoods

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in the town, and from
different towns around.

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I also worked with
Jamaicans and Puerto Ricans,

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and I had never met
people like that before.

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One thing that--

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[LAUGHTER]

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I'd never met foreigners
before except the old Russians

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is what it was.

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It was a tough place to
work, and I was Mr Tough Guy

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in my neighborhood.

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But once I got to a larger
neighborhood like that,

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I wasn't necessarily
the toughest guy.

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So for a while, I just
got in a lot of fights.

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Anyways, this is about
the whole experience.

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Tobacco Farms.

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"Under acres of white
net, I crawl on my knees

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and worry about God,
and sex, and death.

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Sometimes, I'd like to lie
in the damp row and dream.

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But this is piecework,
$0.13 a bend.

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So I pick, and think, and
tender these delicate leaves.

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Heat blazes under the nets.

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But mornings, the dew is cool.

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At lunch, the straw
boss brings beer.

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I watch the Polish immigrant,
nose in a grammar book,

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who arrived last week in a suit.

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By now, he's learned
the vocabulary of fuck

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this and fuck that.

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On the truck ride home, I
dream of Bab's Beach, a dance

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with the Pennsylvania girls.

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I'll drink, maybe fight,
I'll watch stars wheel

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over the curing barns.

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Meanwhile, Ace Cody's
got a new tattoo,

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and the fat kid jiggles
his breasts like a woman.

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Monday, another field,
the same river of

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nets all the way to the sea.

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Not yet 14, and my father
says I know too much."

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[APPLAUSE]

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