dublinka

Abby Oliveira, of the poetry chicks (a specious nom de plume which also takes in Pamela Brown and Jenni Doherty) is author of the sardonic and bitter Saddam is Hanged, a blunt reminder to its audience of the pointlessness of capital punishment. You can get the tone from the first verse below, which if it stays with you, and I think it might, will rescue from any dull and inane new years celebrations.


Ring the bells!
Revellers rejoice!
Hang gay garlands in the streets!
Meet your neighbours,
Sing, shake hands!
For Auld Land Syne
Saddam is hanged.

You can find the poem in the trios' promo Alphabetitudez Loose Lettters Vol.1.. Look out also for Milk and Black coffee., in which Oliveira recounts the story of her savage beating "when I was six years old and playin' in the play-park alone...". Its gritty, frightening and depressing. But like Saddam is hanged, it creates a public and necessary space, through which we, the theatre of the oblivious, should pass.

In passing the collection of micro stories, Wonderful of Worders (edited by Jenni Doherty) contains the great observation by Perry Gretton:


Truth says Keats is beauty, beauty truth.
But truth is no match for vanity,...no match at all.