Paul Henry - such a dag

Tuesday Poet Renée Liang has posted a villanelle about the Paul Henry debacle* on her blog Chinglish. The NZ poet of Kiwi-Asian descent (yes, definitely a New Zealander), Liang says: 'Ironic that one of my first attempts at a villanelle (one of the more intellectual and difficult forms) would be prompted by Paul Henry, but that's what indignant anger will do!'  It begins:  

Paul’s such a dag, he’s such a lark

He’s never serious, never thinks

Why get so mad it’s just a laugh

for more visit her blog.  Great to see poetry out in the NZ political arena!  

*TV host, Paul Henry, urged PM John Key yesterday on live TV to select a Governor-General who "looks and sounds more like a New Zealander". Henry asked Mr Key whether NZ-born Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand - of Indian Fijian descent - was even a New Zealander. 

The miserablist and the poet from Tipperary

Self-declared miserablist and poet Helen Lehndorf is part of the Tuesday Poem project which I began three weeks back, and her posting You by Irish poet Dennis O'Driscoll has led to a fascinating discussion between another Irish poet and herself that you can see here. 


It's one of those 'no way the world's surely not that small' discussions that goes like this:
Helen finds the poem You by O'Driscoll in the New Yorker and posts it on her blog as part of this week's  Tuesday Poem  (see our badge on the left) which links 24 poets to a blog hub each Tuesday. The poem begins: 'Be yourself; show your flyblown eyes/to the world...' , and her liking it explains Helen's self-declared miserablism. 


Well, another Tuesday Poet, John Griffin from Tipperary - whom, I remind you is one of only 24 poets linked to the Tuesday Poem blog - pops up in the comments at the bottom of Helen's post to say (amongst other things): 

O’Driscoll is from Thurles, just down the road from where I live in Ireland. He works with my brother in the Revenue Commissioners.

And there's more. Check it out.