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Transcription: [00:09:37]
{SPEAKER name="Ella Mae Lentz/Shirley Schultz (interpreter)"}
Oops.
[00:09:39]
Okay.
[00:09:41]
I'd like to begin with a poem by a deaf friend of mine. Her name is Dorothy Miles.
[00:09:51]
It's called "Total Communication."
[00:09:55]
[[background noise and talking]]

[00:10:12]
You and I,
can we see aye to aye?
or must your "I", and I
lock horns and struggle till we die?
[00:10:20]

Your mind’s
not mine,
and your experience, I
experience - not -
can never learn.
[00:10:27]
Reverse is the same:
my life transferred's
a blank.
[00:10:33]
We say 'communicate,'
smile, touch, kiss;
[00:10:38]
and I say
‘This-is what I mean.’
You nod at me,
nod at me
excitedly, and say
‘That’s – what I mean,’
that, that

[00:10:49]
Dismay!
Tight throat,
I look, and look –
and see:
[00:10:54]
that, on one hand.
that, on the other hand,
the same?
[00:10:59]
No, not for me.

Must we forever;
eye to eye;
stare past
to what we want to see?
[00:11:08]
Or can our minds
send messages,
[00:11:11]
and your mind’s aye
meet my mind’s aye?
[00:11:16]
OK.
[00:11:17]
[00:11:22]
You see, uh, this poem represents the idea of struggling to communicate between two people or groups of people.
[00:11:29]
It doesn't matter if they have the same language or not. In this situation we have two different languages.
[00:11:36]
You're speaking English and I speak Sign Language.
[00:11:40]
That means that we have to struggle more to communicate. Fortunately we have a Sign Language interpreter here, and she is speaking for me, what I sign, and she'll also sign what you say.
[00:11:52]
So, all of you have to work harder to try to communicate with each other, OK?
[00:11:58]
I'll try to communicate with you about my language, my people and my poetry.

Transcription Notes:
Speaker - Ella Mae Lentz was introduced on Page 4. Poem - Total Communication Poem spelling of words, phrasing and punctuation taken from the internet. Also included extra words when the speaker added words. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm%3A978-0-230-51390-7%2F1.pdf