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You ask me what is poverty? Listen to me. Here I am, dirty, smelly and with no "proper" underwear on and with the stench of my rotting teeth near you. I will tell you. Listen to me, listen without pity. I cannot use your pity. Listen with understanding. Put yourself in my dirty, worn out, ill-fitting shoes, and hear me.

Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirt and illness - stained mattress. The sheets have long since been used for diapers. Poverty is living in a smell that never leaves. This is a smell of urine, sour milk, and spoiling food sometimes joined with the strong smell of long - cooked onions. It is the smell of the outdoor privy(厕所). It is the smell of young children who cannot walk the long dark way in the night. It is the smell of the mattresses where years of "accidents" have happened. It is the smell of the milk which has gone sour because the refrigerator long has not worked, and it costs money to get it fixed. It is the smell of rotting garbage. I could bury it, but where is the shovel? Shovels cost money.

Poverty is being tired. I have always been tired. They told me at the hospital when the last baby came that I had chronic anemia caused from poor diet, a bad case of worms, and that I need a corrective operation. I listened politely--the poor are always polite. The poor always listen. They don’t say there is no money for iron pills or better food, or warm medicine. The idea of an operation is frightening and costs so much that, if I have dared, I would have laughed.

Poverty is looking into a black future. Your children won’t play with my boys. They will turn to other boys who steal to get what they want. I can already see them behind the bars of their prison instead of behind the bars of my poverty. Or they will turn to the freedom of alcohol or drugs, and find themselves enslaved. And my daughter? At best, there is for her a life like mine.

Poverty is an acid that drips on pride until all pride is worn away. Poverty is a chisel(凿子)that chips on honor until honor is worn away. Some of you say that you would do something in my situation, and maybe you would, for the first week or the first month, but for year after year after year?

I have come out of my despair to tell you this. Remember I did not come from another place or another time. Others like me are all around you. Look at us with an angry heart, anger that will help you help me. Anger that will let you tell of me. The poor are always silent. Can you be silent, too?

【语篇导读】本文是一篇记叙文。作者叙述了什么使贫穷，并且通过讲述了四种不同模式的贫穷来激发读者抵制贫穷从而积极生活。