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Transcription: [00:00:12]

{SPEAKER name="Speaker 2"}
festival. What he's going to be doing for us today is telling us about this alternate tradition of poetry, and reciting for us some of the poems–again, poems which are not, poems made to be written down, but rather poems made to be recited. I'm going to open the workshop by talking a little with Spoons and asking a few questions about his background and then we'll go right in to some of the poetry. Spoons–maybe the best way to start, you're looking so dapper up here today, is to go ahead and give away a fews secrets and tell people how old you are and where you're from, where you came up?

[00:00:49]

{Horace "Spoons" Williams}
Well, I'm 74 years old, and I was born in a place called Newberry, South Carolina. This is where I-uh did a lot of work, this is why I'm here. I-I just got tired of working in the cotton fields so much, plowing in the fields so much; and also got tired of being whooped or whipped, whatever the proper phrase is, because I didn't want to work any longer [[motor noises in background]] in the cotton fields or the corn fields or whatever fields behind the master, if you understand what I'm saying.
[00:02:23]
So I left at an early age, I'd say about 13 or 14 and I worked my way north. And believe me it was somewhat a struggle to do so, because there were times when I had to dive in little ditches on the side of the road, you know, and every light that I seen was fatal, this is what I thought, because I was always thinking in no other terms but fright.