Black Momma Math

      I have signed up for a Google email service, "Google Alert" which sends to my g-mail address links to items found in Google searching that contain the words "poetry" and "mathematics".  Recently such an email alerted me to a sharing by a psychiatrist who writes poetry about his medical experiences.

     Richard Berlin, MD, has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 26 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences.  At this link, he shared the poem "Black Momma Math",  by Kimberly Jae who is an award-winning poet, ranked among the top 30 slam poets in the world in 2018.  The poem is also available here at the Poetry Foundation website.   I offer its opening stanzas below.

Black Momma Math      by Kimberly Jae    

     If a jar of jelly is $2.98
    & a loaf of Hawaiian bread is $4
    Then how much bail money will I need when I kill everyone in my house
    for eating all the bread
    and jelly in 5 minutes?

    Black Momma Math
    If Black Momma has a two 17-year-old Black Boys
    What is the probability that they will come home in a body bag in the next 5 years?
    If Son A leaves Ferguson at 3pm traveling at 60 miles per hour and Son B leaves Baltimore at 5pm traveling at 50 miles per hour
    to drive to Florida,
    what time and which morgue
    will their bodies be delivered to 
    when their music and Black Boy Joy inspire a stand your ground tango?
    Better yet,
    what is the cost of a funeral times 2 if a police officer pulls them over?
    If 6 out of 10 people have math anxiety,
    Then how many Black women out of 10 have murdered baby anxiety?

Jae's complete poem is available here at the Poetry Foundation website.