dialects, idiolects and multilingual poetries 199the Samoan fi rstly as a name for young woman, then for framing
gestures that are misinterpreted. The idiomatic stress on a Samoan
background suggests sexual naiveté and innocence. A simple equa-
tion is created between love and pleasure. Alofa goes for a walk and
fi nds ‘alofa everywhere in da bush in da tree under da tree in da
dark alofa... plenty alofa in da dark’ (p. 62 ). In the poem ‘alofa’
also becomes a currency to be traded, since Alofa sings and prays
to Jesus: ‘Jesus bring me plenty alofa plenty money too Jesus make
me win da bingo den I make da big donation show my alofa to all
da peoples in da church’ (p. 62 ). When she does win she goes to
the town and a nightclub to perform with ‘fa’afafi ne’ [drag queens
or transsexuals], as well as ‘Palagi mans’ (p. 62 ) or white men.
The poem eventually chronicles Alofa’s exchange of her body for
alofa – ‘Alofa making alofa in da Seaside Inn with da Palagi man
name Bruce’ (p. 63 ). On return to her community Alofa becomes
the ‘pa’umuka kirl’ pregnant with an illegitimate child – ‘an when
it’s fi nish – Alofa call it Alofa too’ (p. 63 ). Avia’s ideolectical tenor
to the poem adds to a sense of cyclicality; it also frames a brutal
encounter with racial prejudice and the tensions between commu-
nity and urbanity.
CONCLUSION: DALJIT NAGRA
The publication of British Asian poet Daljit Nagra’s Look We
Have Coming to Dover ( 2002 ), was heralded as a new male perspec-
tive and voicing of minority poetry in the UK. As Dave Gunning
notes, Nagra’s poetry ‘leads to important questions about what is
being promoted as an authentic British Asian poetic voice, and
to what extent he is being authorized to speak as a representative
for the plurality of cultures that make up British Asian communi-
ties’.^78 Gunning argues that Nagra’s texts are open to a plurality
of different voices from the experiences of immigration, as well
as those of fi rst- or second-generation Indian immigrants. More
than even Avia’s poems, Nagra’s work performs ‘ideolectically’
in Bernstein’s confi guration by creating a text which acts not only
against the established hierarchies of English grammar, but which
is sonically adventurous, pushing boundaries through challenging