Abstract

I wuz inspired for write dis piece aftah I saw Balaz's Hawaiian Concrete Poetry series on display.1 One time I wen fo' check outJoe at one of his readings and I toll 'em Joe brah, your concrete poems, dey pretty SOLID. He go laugh. So den I wen ax 'em, Eh, you eva tot about making one Pidgin Concrete series And he tot about 'em fo' awhile den he wuz all like Eh Lee, YOU should go try. So I wuz tinking shooots, I go chance 'em. Now, wen you look at Test Your Pidgin P.O.V. tell me wot you guys see? Wot?! Oooo, so much negativity brah; no can. I use dis poem wen I go around for talk to classrooms, public, private, intermediate school, high school, college, anykine, and das da first answer dat students usually give me too-NO CAN. So many Pidgin pessimists. Can you come up wit one more positive way of looking at dis piece o'wot? Try tink. Right on. Ho, you get 'em. Das how. We get ONE Pidgin optimist in da house. I like dis piece, not ony cuz I wrote 'em, but cuz da ting mirrors actual life. We's brought up for believe dat we cannot do certain tings if we talk Pidgin. So ass why upon da initial examination, da negative reading is wot most people arrive at first. In da real world get planny Pidgin prejudice, ah. Dey, da ubiquitous dey, dey is everywea brah; dey say dat da perception is dat da standard english talker is going automatically be perceive fo' be mo' intelligent than da Pidgin talker regardless wot