Joe Balaz, Hawai’i, USA
“I just want to say one word to you—
Plastics.”
Dat suggestion given to wun young man
portrayed by Dustin Hoffman
in da film The Graduate
can serve as wun unintended prophecy
as far as da oceans of da world
are concerned.
It’s in da seabirds,
it’s in da fish,
it’s on da beaches,
to create wun mess.
Anadah human made problem
polluting da environment.
Now da mercury in your tuna
has wun companion
and shorelines everywheah
are looking like dumps.
Broken down ovah time
dis stuff
is wun new synthetic plankton
filling up da seas.
I hate to say dis
but it’s going to get worse
before it gets bettah.
Plastics—
It started out
as wun wonderful convenience
but now it’s making our well being
so much moa difficult.
Note: The above poem is written in Hawai'i Creole English, a variety of English spoken in the Hawaiian Islands today.
Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai'i Creole English). He has Hawaiian ancestry and he grew up in Hawai'i. He is the author of Pidgin Eye and the editor of Ho'omanoa: An Anthology of Contemporary Hawaiian Literature. Balaz presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio, but he has a strong connection to Hawai'i through his past and current works.
