by NONA BLYTH CLOUD

Dana Gioia, the subject of last week’s post, often writes about the change poetry is undergoing from small runs of books at boutique publishers for a sparse group of readers to a populist movement of rappers and poetry slammers speaking their poems for audiences.

So I thought this week was a good time to explore what’s happening in that brave new world, which is really a throwback to poetry’s origins, millennia before the printing press, when the words were stored in the poet’s head and then chanted aloud. Spoken word poetry in today’s electronic forum is heard by much larger audiences because of microphones, recording devices and the Internet.

Many thanks to my friend Ramara for showing me a You Tube video of Holly Poetry, her poetry slam moniker. Some of her poems are under her other name, Holly McNish. She’s originally from Glasgow, which is a very difficult accent to follow for non-Brits. I know because I once spent three days there, and everyone was so kind and patient, but I couldn’t understand a word! However, she did go to university in England, so even if you’re an American like me you should be able to understand her, and the poems are printed out too.

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Mathematics

He says
“those god damn pakistanis and their goddamn corner shops
Built a shop on every corner took our British workers jobs
He says those godamn Chinese and their goddamn china shops
I tell him theyre from Vietnam but he doesn’t give a toss
I ask him what was there before that damn Japan mans shop
He stares at me and dreams a scene of British workers jobs
Of full time full employment before the godamn boats all came
Where everybody went to work full time every day
A British Business stood their first he claims before the Irish came
Now British people lost their jobs and bloody turkish are there to blame
I ask him how he knows that fact he says because it’s true
I ask him how he knows the fact he says he read it in the news
Everytime a Somalian comes here they take a job from us
The mathematics one for one, from us to them it just adds up
He bites his cake and sips is brew and says again he knows the spot
The godamn Carribeans came and now good folk here don’t have jobs
I ask him what was there before the goddamn Persian curtain shop
I show him architectures plans of empty godamn plots of land
I show him the historic maps
A bit of sand, a barren land
There was no goddamn shop before those pakistanis came and planned
Man
I’m sick of crappy mathematics
Cos I love a bit of sums
I spent three years into economics
And I geek out over calculus
And when I meet these paper claims
That one of every new that came
Takes away ones daily wage
I desperately want to scream
“Your maths is stuck in primary”
Cos one who comes here also spends
And one who comes here also lends
And some who comes here also tend
To set up work which employs them
And all your balance sheets and trends
Work with numbers not with men
And all your goddamn heated talk
Ignores the trade the Polish brought
Ignores the men they gave work to
Not plumbing jobs but further too
Ignores the ones they buy stock from
Accountants, builders, on and on
And I know it’s nice to have someone
To blame our lack of jobs upon
But immigrations not as plain
Despite the sums inside your brain
As one for one, as him or you
As if he goes, they’ll employ you
Cos sometimes one that comes makes two
And sometimes one can add three more
And sometimes two times two is much much more
Than four
And most times immigrants bring more
Than minuses.

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