 Okay, that's for my break up, my presentation into basically three parts that I wanted and because I want to give as much context, I'd like to give as much context as I can to the talk that I've planned to share with you today. First, I'm going to share with you my sense of, as a hearing poet, of a bicultural poet. In other words, I want to explain to you very briefly what poetry means to me. Second, I'd like to deliver a talk to you. And then third, take questions if there's time. And I hope this is in Japan. I appreciate very much the opportunity to be here and to be with you. And I would like to say as well that my whole presentation, my whole being here, is to responsibility of someone who I'd like to display to you today, Adele, who is my mentor and really the facilitator behind Adele. She was a person I worked with here at NTID who died last year. First, I'd like to say that about my talk, about this word, bicultural, I don't really believe that in bicultural issues anymore, that it's a hearing and a deaf world. I don't believe it's a black, white world. I don't believe it's a gay or a straight world. I just want to share that point with you. First point of my poetic, can you see that of people? What I'd like to make is a poet, Jed Kerouet, who basically from the B generation of the 50s in American male, Euro-American poetry and literature. He said at one point, no fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language and knowledge of some Jed Kerouet. Second, I was from Laurent Claire. There's no ungrammatical, anti-mine, only unsuccessful ones. As a poet, I'd like to just, you know, I always advocate that grammar isn't so much a poet's job as being successful in conveying experience. Ezra Pound really influenced me by saying direct treatment of the thing itself is what's important in making poems. My mentor here at NTID, Bob Panera, said in an interview I did with him in 83, a single image, hard and clear. The more or less father of the lineage that I come from was a medical doctor as well as a poet named William Carlos Williams. And he was famous for saying no ideas put in things, which I grappled with my entire poet career trying to understand. So if that's kind of confusing to you, that's how it should be. Don't be worried. It's what you see is from an interview I did with Peter Cooley several years ago. Number seven, oh, and there's only ten of these. The ambition of a good poet is to write something that is visually bright and clear, featured at the Norway Institute in Holder, Colorado. The most influential French poet of the 16th century, Joaquin Dubey, says, and this is for people that want to be remembered as poets, who wants to live in memory, has to sweat and tremble. The poet, Debbie Rending, once said to a cell interpreter, Don Quichitas, this is not English, this is for you. She has a very good sense of humor. The last item is something on my own that simply said is that the science base, to me is something holy, it's a sacred ground. The same way that for Native Americans, four directions are sacred. The connection to the land that Native Americans talk to us about is similar to the use of the science base in a native cell. That's a teardrop in some forgotten video, or why study American Sign Language. It's for a Delt Friedman strip. William Stokey published my essay called The New Death Poetics, A Visual Poetry, in the fall of 1986, Issue of Sign Language Studies. I was, as I've said before, no longer the hearing person I've been, because pianos of the Kingdom of Noise hung over me still, reddening to come crashing down upon my piece of mind. I would never again be the hearing poet I was when I began my journey into the poetry of deaf people. By the mid-80s, we poets, translators, and interpreters of the Genesee Valley. It already initiated our own local, ambitious, and accessible language arts experiment. Expansive, inclusive, and cognizant of a poetic diversity emphasized regarding those earlier attempts at expressing diversity. It's that these varieties of poets and poetries strengthen overlanding communities, and allow each of us to face, as we saw the months, whatever form discrimination took, only that form of discrimination we thought, or schooled, it taught us to believe was exclusively ours. In addition, we learned firsthand that the roots of multicultural language arts lie in the strength of our overlanding communities, and that it is in the light of diversity of cultural experience and aesthetic traditions that there exists a clear, legitimate need for the qualitative studies of American Sign Language Arts. The education of our children, our college students, and our future teachers, and the study of ASL Arts. And by arts, the word arts, I mean language arts. I mean poetry, I mean fiction, I mean storytelling. I mean whatever your thing is, whatever it is. I'd like to share with you two basic premises upon which, in looking back, I began my own study. The most fundamental premise I made in my earlier work among deaf peoples is that I never doubted the existence of a deaf poetry or poetry. It was, and remains my view, that all languages have their own multitudinous poetry zone. And in my experience with deaf people, I was aware that what may be lacking in studies of sign language and sign languages is a serious comparative analysis of poetry, not grammars, of which there were an abundance. In particular, what I found most fascinating were periods of world poetry where vernaculars rose to literary power, fascinating. Were periods rose to literary power and visibility by challenging the exclusivity of the, quote, official language of that period. A second premise I made about deaf cultures as elsewhere was that there has probably always emerged, and in times we know this for sure, flowering of poetic diversity, expression of diversity in forms and we also mean diversity of experiences. For example, the form of ASL poetry may take its shape through translations. In print, I'll add that you may not like that, takes its shape accompanied by a voice and more original manuality or a manual tradition of deaf peoples. Possibilities for poetic diversity are also created by the variety of human experience and vision. While one poet's work expressed the parameters of a cultural slavery I expressed the growth and sorrow of the heart. To possess an eye for prophecy, deaf poetic cultures continue to define my understanding of ASL arts within a context of intra-cultural diversity. The process of making this intra-cultural diversity is the very best of it, visible cultural curriculum to future generations, an understanding that by the word poetry we mean something essentially human with diversification, bridge about and opening up to the greater challenges of within culture exclusion, taboo and self-censorship and static academic forms of difference based upon pre-existent and interdisciplinary monolith of hierarchy. Poets know this. We create to preserve, change or destroy the parts of ourselves, our cultural framework or the world. We understand or we come to understand through lessons and models people bring to one another in poetry that we are whole and wise beings only so far as we're able to be part of a whole and wise universe. This is the nature of poetry itself. How then can we transform an incomplete and false multicultural framework so that the deaf world community may more deeply enter the collective human conscience of the planet? And I'd like to use how inclusivity has come to be important to me in my real daily life. I also want to give you an opportunity to question my thinking. But in doing so, I want you to have an idea why I have these thoughts I do. First, let me say that I've had the fortune of three illustrious schools at which I have studied and learned. The Naropa Institute of Carolina School in Rochester commenced poets at the cold western door of the east of North America and it burns with barn an organic farming community and peace village in the northwest foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. I've often felt myself to be between in relation to others and that this feeling of the two institutes of coming in between persons ideas or cultures may have resulted from a trauma I carried from my childhood that my father's physical and emotional abuse of my person was as children often feel in situations of abuse because I had come between my parents in a way that hurt them in the wrong way between educational boundaries early on when self-encode her speech and remediation seven long years I felt pressed between a family I loved who didn't understand me and communities of like-minded peoples with whom I found no home between the great scholar-poet Robert Canera Alan Ginsberg I stood in 1984 there at a moment of poetic transmission from golden age and each generation of these board of directors and literary centers I stood between poet Peter Cook and Ken Lerner I held each hand till the bond was formed how I would summarize the landscape from which my expression of a multicultural poet arises comes from a shared often maddening sense that poets everywhere experience in which we appear to be loved protected and adored by persons who only use our work to enhance or ornament their own argument case finding or theorems use of poetry of our calling and comprehensive and systematic way to make sure our work and our lives become ineffectual distorted trivialized educational objective being today's classmate in classrooms of tomorrow educational objective as being a complete transformation upon all the mainstream precedes deafness so that there is an actual movement away once and for all from the medical or biological models and towards a cultural model of which there is no organic gap only difference shift must take place and for the following reasons best studies belong within the multicultural framework so the poetry and language arts may take an equal place in the existing curriculum of oppression which traditionally includes studies of race gender and ethnicity but exclude from its social justice agenda studies of persons with differing ability or forms of agelessness a second reason to shift educational models away from those that equate deafness with educational deficit or undesirable human characteristics and towards models that include deafness with other specific cultural models bounded on themes of difference is that students need to know the truth about deaf pride I'm talking about all students they need to know the truth about deaf pride deaf heritage and deaf culture and these are areas addressed well in the studies of ASL arts as poet David Wright once expressed persons from or with strong ASL cultural backgrounds may feel enormous loss if in fact they become hearing they may feel as if they had had their hands cut on should the oral sense disfigure their sons again they may feel as if they had had their hands cut on should the oral sense disfigure their sons that perpetuate handicap or unwellness in classes where literature and culture are studied compared and discussed how are we supposed to deal about the way deafness is conveyed in literature how does that kind of thinking infect us have we ever read these texts in a way that addresses who we really are like deaf people hearing families who love them but never learn who they are important to realize that the life of a poet and the heritage of poetry passed down hand to hand through the generations is very similar while deaf poet communities form and preserve their peoples language their most precious artifact others analyze it prove its existence write about it teach it make commerce from it but somehow escape except for brief moments in their lives from ever quite living it a lot of people find it so I guess it is difficult and I understand it this was a kind of an experiment are there any questions about anything I've said so far that you want to have to send them out that would be more effective that would be more effective way of thinking that would be a great idea that would be a great idea in Rochester between hearing the deaf people from and again my original point was it's not just hearing and deaf I don't think that that Bicultural framework is what it was bound for we were Hispanic women hearing we were black men hearing we were a diverse who were deaf some of them were deaf, gay white some of them were deaf black lesbian all together that included interpreters it included people that came to see us that's the experiment that started in Rochester and I think it's continued it's wonderful I was thinking about a lot of people and then also quickly you learned your experience and it's like you're writing but that has been true but where did that culture come from? that's what that list was about the emphasis on the visual the emphasis on the concrete I could get into it I was deeply affected I was affected enough to take a stick a lot of abuse from you and me over there so can we have the house lights up please I want to see your faces up up up up wonderful that's better wow can you see me okay? great I feel that when you do storytelling you need to feed off that energy from the audience now it's really bright got it so tonight what I'd like to do is perform some poetry some poems and some stories some of my work I decide to hold for tomorrow morning when we discuss it I want to share more about what I'm going to be doing and I think if I talk too much about it tonight I'll take too much from what I'm going to do tomorrow so we'll be discussing more about what you see tomorrow I fell in love with storytelling around 1982 at that time there was a lot of discussion about ASL and yes there had been research about ASL being a true language and all that so it wasn't a new concept that ASL was a language but more and more we noticed that people were performing there was poetry there was storytelling and I was growing up at this time and seeing all these conversations and I was too embarrassed to share the things that I had within me the stories and performances I wanted to do I kept it very private I didn't want to show friends or anybody I just kept it in my head I did come up with a poem or two back then and the one I'm going to perform for you was about when I grew up now I was shocked because I always had one concept of how I grew up until my parents just a few years ago undid my idea that I had been born hearing and became deaf later I don't know why I got that notion in my head my parents said no you were always deaf you were born that way but somehow in my mind I was born hearing and became later deaf I knew this idea that when kids were born deaf their parents were grief stricken they didn't know what to do and so it didn't fit with what I thought about my life and so my poem even though it's about a misconception I had about how I grew up I'll still perform it the way I created it but I just wanted to set the record straight and say I was born deaf I wasn't born hearing and then became deaf later in front of us we see a glowing vibrating orb and another one beside it two worlds and in between them a head body and wings are struggling to emerge from a shell time passes and this being becomes familiar with its corporeal feeling time passes mommy daddy mommy gives me a cup time passes daddy goes away mommy doesn't work I want milk and I get milk I want a cracker I get a cracker daddy comes back time passes one day I'm sick and the temperature seems high so I'm taken to the hospital a man with a swinging instrument comes up to me and places something on my chest to listen to my heart there are notes between my parents and this man and then the decisive nod that gives the information I find myself enclosed in a shell I'm still enclosed in this shell at home I blow a feather someone gives me a feather to blow it looks fun the beautiful flowers growing all around me someone says be careful you'll prick yourself on that thorn I pick flowers and smell them I see little creepy crawly things and look at them and I try to touch it I see something that's scary to me and I touch it and then it doesn't crawl anymore why doesn't it move anymore? mommy says you touched it a little too hard and now it's dead too hard she says and it will never move anymore a lesson learned but I'm still in my shell I am still in my shell there's another girl there's another girl she looks to be my age with brown curly hair I have blond hair what's your name? my name's Bonnie I like you and together we play and become friends let's go to the sandbox yes let's go we need some water I'll go to my mommy I say to the house I go mommy I need some water what do you need water for? you need to wet the sand I look back at these memories how sweet making mud pies making sand pies mommy says sure and gives me the water it's heavy she warns I can carry it no problem I say and she gives me that heavy bucket to take back to the sandbox we scoop it into the sand and it changes color when you add water to it it becomes darker and we imagine an oven and we imagine the wonderful sense of baking our mud pies oh it must be ready now have to be careful it'll be hot maybe we should take off our shirt and use it for an oven mitt good idea my friend says but I'm still in my shell I'm still in my shell daddy says let's go get in the car and we drive down the road and we climb up to the top of the hill I say I want something to drink and he says that's fine you can get one soda so I get a soda and I drink it all the way down I want more there's a man over there and I decide to ask hi I like you what's your name my name's Bonnie I'm so hungry oh thank you that's so nice of you to give it to me there's popcorn I fill up my bowl with popcorn you shouldn't do that my father says where did you get that oh this guy was there and I asked him you shouldn't do that don't bother people at the deaf club and ask them for things I'm still in my shell there's a man walking towards me there's a black cloud on the horizon there's a man who starts talking to me I don't understand him this black cloud is coming closer he's moving his mouth I seek big teeth clattering I don't understand this huge cloud moves closer and closer the storm cloud over me this mouth moves this huge tongue enunciating moving and I don't understand in this huge cloud and rumbling and thundering approaches me as this mouth spits on me and keeps moving its clattering teeth and its big lips and its big tongue and I don't understand and I don't understand and the thunder and the lightning are crashing all around me now reverberating all around me and my shell starts to crumble okay? thank you yeah I know maybe need more coffee we'll be talking about this more later I do have a lot of things I want to talk about regarding my work we will do that tomorrow I want to do the second poem for you now and there's always a story behind poetry of course I went to the school for the deaf and you know back in the day when I was going to school there were no captions on the TV at all so we watched a lot of movies I often went to movies with my parents and us kids we would go watch them and of course we would create a lot of stories in our minds because there were no captions about what was going on and often we would talk together to kind of fill in the gaps in the story we'd get home and my family my sisters, my brother all of us were deaf and we would recapitulate the story we'd try to guess what those mouth movements were and we would then copy them with each other so the key to learning how to be a storyteller is from that love of discussion with the parents, with my siblings about what was actually in those movies you know the dinner table every night we would sit around and we would talk so much about these sorts of things and anything that my parents were exposed to they would tell us the stories of them and then we would sit and watch them tell these stories quite often and my parents had a rule that if we were going to go see movies it had to be Walt Disney they felt that no other movies were appropriate for children so quite often if there was a new Disney movie we would go watch it and then we would all tell the story to each other over and over again so quite often my work is informed by Disney sorts of aesthetic as you will notice this story is about a little deaf duck and of course it's inspired by the ugly duckling tale which I've changed and adapted once upon a time a long time ago we enter the woods, the trees to a big clearing where we see a nest upon which a mother duck sits and the father says when, when, when and the mother says I'm waiting I'm so tired please when are they going to hatch I can't wait to meet my babies I know the father says just be patient are you hungry honey yes I am would you please go catch me some fish no problem and the father duck waddles off to go and search for some fish to bring back and feed the mother duck who's trying to wait patiently for her babies to hatch while she's waiting she preens her feathers and suddenly feels a movement underneath her one of those eggs moves breaks open and out hatches a little duckling so cute and then the other egg starts to hatch and out hatches another one two beautiful perfect little ducks and the parents give each other little kisses then there's a third out comes a third duckling what a great day and one after another they leave the nest and toddle off there's a fourth egg darn I have to sit a little bit longer I guess it's alright honey the father duck says I'll look after the other ones you just stay on the nest alright she says and reluctantly sits back on that last egg little resentfully waiting and trying to be patient and suddenly feels the movement that heralds the arrival of a different looking duck kind of mohawk feathers and a fluffy little tail a little duck a little awkward a little different with that little tail and the cute little mohawk feathers and the mothers enchanted this one's going to be my favorite I just know it and she preens the little duckling who starts to try to walk away the little duckling sees the water sees his reflection in the water nibbles it and then the ripples emanate out from it and he's delighted he wants to touch it and then he notices something else another reflection and looks up and sees the parents quacking to each other look look look the little duckling says but sees the parents quack quack quack quack quack he doesn't quite understand but steps into that water which is so cold how fun it's delightful and then this little duckling decides to get in the water and test out his little feet there he goes the mother duck swims to the side speaks to the father duck and seems to be concerned about that little duckling they look at each other and the father seems to be saying it's alright maybe he's slow maybe he's lazy something they're not all the same and the parents look at each other lovingly still thinking how cute this little fourth duckling is and they swim over to where the little one is testing out his little web feet and the parents call one two three the others come but the little one is enchanted by watching a fish under the water decides to hold his nose and then submerges and then comes up again spouting water and coughing after this new experience once more holds his nose and goes under and indeed catches his fish the mother looks at him lovingly so proud quack quack quack quack quack that's funny he didn't seem to answer quack quack quack quack quack and then the little duck goes off the mother duckling decides that they need some medical intervention so they go to the big quack doctor who comes to them with his huge stethoscope and all his accoutrements and his medical bag this medical duck comes over to the little one and the parents described what seems to be the problem adorable. There's something. I try to get his attention. He doesn't look. No worries, says the quack doctor. He takes out his tuning fork, hits it, and puts it next to the little duck's ear. He feels a vibration and looks over smiling at the fun of this game. Then he takes out another tuning fork and puts it on the other side of the little duck's head. That tickles. That's kind of fun. Hmm. Then the consultation begins and the doctor tells the parents, your little duck is deaf. Really? Yes, deaf. But no fears. Everything will be fine. We have this wonderful device. You can put headphones on the duck and wires and a big FM box on him and he'll be just fine. But he won't be able to swim ever again. But really, really, our duck will be fine. He'll be able to hear absolutely, says the doctor. How much does it cost? Five hundred fish, says the doctor. Oh, good heavens. We'll never afford it. So the parents decide to talk and figure out how they'll ever be able to pay this off. No worries, says the doctor. You can pay me off on the installment plan. Oh, thank you. Thank you for being so accommodating, the parents say. And then they fit the little duck with his headphones and a huge FM unit which weighs him down so he goes further down on his feet. So heavy. So uncomfortable. And the little duck looks around, trying to get used to this new environment. It'll take a little time, the doctor says. He has to get used to it. Little difficult at first with new sounds. The parents think the doctor profusely. Pay him his first installment of fish. And then the father works to earn more fish to be able to pay off this new device for his child. The little duck is so sad. He's land bound and has to carry around this heavy, heavy box that swings from him all the time. It's difficult to walk. He sees a cow nearby. And the cow calls out, Brr, what a strange box on you. Feeling a little put out, little duck walks away, walks away, sees chickens that say something to him as well. And the cow mocks him. And the little duck feels so sad because now all the other animals, whoever he encounters, laugh at him and what he looks like. Well, the little duck decides he needs to go someplace else. But walking near him is a cat. And now this cat sees him after grooming herself. Look at your box on your neck, she says. Now the duck feels insulted by another animal and decides, I need to run away. And so he packs up all his things and decides to find other happier places to live. Down the road he goes in search of another place. Here's a huge pond. And in the distance, on that pond, he sees some other ducks with long necks, beautiful feathers, and they're using their wings in the most interesting way to communicate. They're smiling, they're communicating, they're not using their beaks, they're using their wings and their feathers. They notice him and beckon him to come closer. He looks around to make sure that he's the one they're talking to. Yes, they beckon, come on over. And so he does. This one different kind of bird says, your earphones, that wire, that box, I used to be like you, but no more, I don't use them. Oh, I could never take them off, says the little duck. Let's try, says this new bird, and takes them off the duck and throws them away. And they spin head over heels over and over until they fall down into the pond, splash and fall down into the depths, the water closing around the top as if these things had never been. And the little duck nods. And when these birds summon this duck to follow them, he starts to move his wings and his feathers in the same way and gleefully joins them. Come, they say, and together this new community of different sorts of birds than the others, fly away together. It's a new way of moving for the little duck, but he makes his way and they all head out into the sunset where they live happily ever after. And our story concludes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Let's see. Okay. Now, now I'm going to tell a story. There's a hot topic that's up in our community these days. Oppression. There's a lot of hard feelings about oppression going on. Oppression means that you're, you don't accept other people for signing. You don't accept people of who or who they are. And I was reading this article one day in Reader's Digest, which I read from time to time. And there was this one thing that really caught my attention and gave me pause. So I thought, why don't I turn this into an ASL story? There's a lot of struggles going on, a lot of oppression. Seems like a big topic and it seemed that the story would fit the bill. I think you as deaf folks in the audience will understand the idea of oppression and see how the ideas in the story might or might not reflect in your own experience. Okay. This is the snake story up on a mountain covered with white snow. If you follow the path, you see a house with smoke coming out of the chimney. And inside you find a person who's frustrated because now their wood has run out. Their fire is low and it's cold outside. This person needs some more wood. So she puts on her coat, her hat, her scarf, her gloves, her boots. And she opens the door to a howling blizzard. She searches through the snow that's blowing and finally finds a stack of wood. She gathers as much as she can in her arms and then she notices something. Oh my gosh. It's this brown, coiled shape with a head at the top. What is that? It's a snake. But the poor little thing. It's frozen right in place. And she thinks if I leave it there, it will die for sure. Hmm. What should I do? I know. I can bring the snake into the house, thaw it out, and then release it outside again. Perfect. Why not? And so she opens her coat and takes this half frozen snake and puts it inside next to her warm body, gathers up the rest of the wood, and very carefully keeping her coat closed, makes her way back home where she puts the snake out to thaw. She banks up the fire until everything is warm and toasty. Taking off all of her winter clothes, getting comfy, she watches the snake revive. Slowly it lifts its head. Maybe the snake's thirsty. Maybe I need to give it a drink of water, she says. Here. And the snake laps up some of the water that was just given. Oh, look at that. The snake looks at the woman, and the woman looks at the snake. Maybe it's hungry, she thinks. Hmm, what do I do? What do snakes eat? Oh, may I have bread? Maybe some bread? Well, fine. I'll try bread. So she gets out some bread. And the snake takes a few experimental bites and seems to revive even more. Oh, look at that, she thinks. It's working. That snake is feeling better. The snake raises up even more, uncoils, raises, and all of a sudden its eyes narrow. And before she even knows what's happening, its fangs are exposed, and that snake comes towards her and bites her right in the chest. You bit me. Why, she asks. Honey, I'm a snake. Thank you. So now, well, actually, I'm going to insert one more story before I go to the very last one. The last one will be more of a poem. So I'll tell one more story, and then I'll end. I went to a school for the deaf, as I mentioned before, and we were a big storytelling kind of group of kids. I was in a small town. A lot of the kids lived far from home, so we entertained each other by telling stories all the time. And I have to say, I was kind of a mean kid. If I had a bad dream, I didn't want to keep it to myself. I wanted to tell other people. I wanted them to suffer with me. I had a little teddy bear. It was adorable. It was so cute. Had a little tongue that stuck out, and it had a heart applique to its chest. Its arms were open, just ready for a hug. I just loved my teddy bear. Cutest thing ever. I brought it from home, and I loved my teddy bear. If I cried, it didn't matter. I would spot it all over with my tears, and it didn't matter if I spilled things on it. It didn't matter if I beat it when I was angry. It didn't matter. That teddy bear just took whatever I would give it. It was always open and willing to accept my love or whatever emotion I would have. One night, I had a terrible dream. It was very upsetting. That's what I'm going to tell you about right now. In my dream, there's my teddy bear with its little tongue out, and its little heart showing, and then the tongue was retracted, and the eyes open, and an evil expression overtook its features, and that heart disappeared. And that bear started walking towards me like a robot. I was terrified. No, no, this is my teddy. But it started coming after me. You beat on me. You cry and get me stained with your tears. I'm going to eat you. No, no, I screamed and cried. Go away, go away. I'm coming to get you. And I ran away as fast as I could from this evil teddy bear, which advanced on me, no matter how far ahead I thought I was. It was the oddest thing. Then it passed me, and it went right through a wall. I saw it go through a wall, and I thought, how on earth was it able to do that? My bear just walked through a solid wall. So I went over to that wall, and I found that I could stick my hand through the wall, too. That's strange. I tried a leg. That went through, too. When I put my arm through it disappeared, but when I retracted my arm, there it was again. So I tried to go all the way through the wall, and I did. On the other side of the wall, there were people hanging from trees in an evil forest. In slow motion, I looked to the other side, and again, there were trees with people hanging in all sorts of positions. And there were many evil bears all coming towards me, pointing me, saying, you, you, next. No, I said no, but they advanced on me. I don't want to. I don't want to. Where can I get you? They said no, no. I screamed, and I ran back as fast as I could, but they came to me, and I went to the other side of my wall, and I climbed back in my bed as fast as I could, terrified. When I woke up, there was my sweet little teddy bear lying right next to me. I wasn't sure I trusted it, but what I did was I went and woke up all my friends. I said, you see my bear? That is a terrible bear. He wants to eat you. I saw him. I saw him last night. His tongue went back in his mouth, and his eyes were evil, and his heart disappeared, and he said he wanted to eat me. He said that, and I scared all my friends, and everybody started crying, and everybody started screaming, everybody. Everybody said, your teddy bear wants to eat me. Your teddy bear wants to eat me. He wants to kill me. The supervisor, the dorm supervisor came and said, what's going on? There's a bad bear over there, everybody said, because I couldn't stand to suffer alone. I had to share the pain with everyone in my room. Thank you. Now, the very last one is a poem, and this is a true story. It was when I was 11 that it occurred. I don't want to tell you too much because I don't want to ruin the poem, but something happened at the School for the Deaf, and boy, I have never forgotten it. I just can't let it go ever. About four months ago, I was asked to perform here, and I accepted the invitation. I was so excited to be part of this event, and then this memory just surfaced. I kept trying to push it back because it's so painful, but it will not stay down. I kept trying to not face this, but now I'm letting come to the forefront of my consciousness, and I am able to share this with you. And I think maybe it'll help because it's a hard experience to deal with, and I think sharing is something that will help me deal with it in my own way. It's something I can't forget anyway. I want to be able to look at it as something that just happened and then move forward from it. And it's called honoring the sun rises in a beautiful valley through which a highway runs divided into two lanes with a yellow stripe. A yellow sign is on this highway. Danger. Curve ahead. Be careful. And a car makes its way down this road. Cars pass it. The headlights are on. There's a sign. Danger. Curve ahead. And as this car approaches the curve, too fast, too fast, it leaves the road and tumbles and hits a tree. It's Saturday night. Football game. All the football players are announcing the homecoming queen who is not there because she died. And all the football players look at the scoreboard where there's a beautiful picture displaying this girl who would have been the homecoming queen. There is a throne with a crown placed upon it, but she's not sitting there. And all of the audience bows their heads and tears fall from everybody. A car left the road. A car tumbled. And eyes closed upon this world forever. She had two deaf brothers. She had dreams. And those dreams are gone now. We'll all miss her, everyone says. We all love her. And she beckoned to her brothers. Come with me in that car. Come with me. Join me. And as this car tumbled, head over heels, head over heels, the brothers would not go. Her friends at the school for the deaf were eating. They had breakfast that morning. And they were told that their friend had died in a car crash the night before. No, they all screamed. How can we? All the dishes fell to the ground as everybody stood up in disbelief. There were tears. There were splashes on the ground from the tears. This car that hit the tree, all the dreams, everything in her mind, everything screamed, help, help, save me. But each breath was less strong, each heartbeat less strong. Eyes open and shut until they could open and shut no more. That car accident was terrible. There had been three. There were people who'd been saved from the first two, but that one, she couldn't be saved. That sun came up in a blaze of glory. Those tears were shed. The road continued down a forested path with its yellow line dividing the lanes and a sign saying danger curve ahead.