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Transcription: [00:33:48]
{SPEAKER name="Ella Mae Lentz/Shirley Schultz (interpreter)"}
"Life and Death"
[00:33:55]

This next poem is called "Life and Death" and I wrote this myself.
[00:34:01]
This poem, I tried to experiment with the idea of putting signs on paper.
[00:34:09]
You see signs is , eh, sign language is a visual language and uses space to establish things. So I tried to put the signs on the page represent the space.
[00:34:23]
It didn't work well but I think it is a nice poem to share with you.
[00:34:27]


Ocean, huge and blue,
spreads out in space,
[00:34:36]

ripples bigger, bigger
waves bigger, bigger
[00:34:40]

splashes it's hands
upon an old huge rock
[00:34:45]

rising up and up
on top, a tree, old and crooked
[00:34:49]

watches and muses upon the ocean.
both conflict, yet but both blended.
[00:34:57]


[[applause]]
blend.
[00:35:02]

Thank you. I don't know what I do with--
[00:35:06]


[[microphone feedback]]

That's okay. I put my hand on it. Don't do that. [[laughs]]
[00:35:17]


"San Francisco Song?" She didn't tell me about that one.
[00:35:21]

freeways
[00:35:32]

[[silence]]

We didn't have time, much time to practice, so I hope you can bear with us.
[00:35:55]

Ah, this song was written by a teacher of mine who was deaf. That person influenced me a lot, in terms of writing poems, playing with signs.
[00:36:05]
And I chose that poem because I am going to San Francisco myself very soon, and I grew up there. [[giggles]] So I really feel a relation with that place, a connection.
[00:36:17]