U2 singer Bono defends his Ukraine poem

U2 singer Bono Vox spoke to Desert Island Discs about his poem to Ukraine, for which he was criticized on social media in March 2022.

“This poem thing is ridiculous”

Bono’s poem to the Ukrainian people, read on St. Patrick’s Day by Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, drew negative reactions on social media on March 17, 2022. Bono now explained that it was only a short poem in a joking setting. Unfortunately, Pelosi took the lines out of context with her presentation:

“I sometimes write limericks (five-line joking poem – editor’s note) for the Paddy’s Day event. It was 10 minutes, it was meant to be satire, funny, and the Speaker of the House, who is an amazing woman, instead of saying ‘Limerick’, she said it was a poem and so people thought it was like a Seamus Heaney work ‘ said Bono. He added: “I deserve a slap in the face. Every singer in a rock ‘n’ roll band will say something wrong at some point. But this poem thing is ridiculous. It was just a limerick.”

Here are all the verses again

“Oh, St Patrick he drove out the snakes
With his prayers but that’s not all it takes
For the snake symbolizes
An evil that rises
And hides in your heart, as it breaks

And the evil hath risen my friends
From the darkness that lives in some men
But in sorrow and fear
That’s when saints can appear
To drive out those old snakes once again

And they struggled for us to be free
From the psycho in this human family
Ireland’s sorrow and pain
Is now the Ukraine
And St Patrick’s name now Zelenskiy”



ttn-30