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John Canfield

“[children in Shanghai] have a can-do attitude to maths, which contrasts with the long-term anti-maths culture that exists here” - Elizabeth Truss, Education Minister, 18th Feb 2014

It is subtle at first,
graffiti appears on the walls,
bus shelters and pavements;
a symbol that most cannot place.

Then leaflets come dropping
through doors with the details
of organised demos and marches,
petitions are started online.

Within weeks, newspapers
are starting to run with virulent
anti-arithmetic headlines, offices
buzz with near-knuckle number jokes,

straw polls are held
via phone-ins and web hits
with landslide results,
though the votes are uncounted.

Schoolchildren cheer as textbooks
are pulped and playgrounds
light up with bright-burning
effigies of Archimedes.

Those in possession of abaci
are punished by
a lifetime stretch
(this being the only sentence left).

Pi is dismantled digit by digit
until we are free from
fractions, equations,
statistics and spreadsheets,

bankers and budgets,
and all that matters is your name.
Now tell me, how many
fingers do I have held up?

John Canfield grew up in Cornwall and now lives in London. His poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. He trained as an actor, but due to a clerical error currently works in an accounts department.

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