Bono Wrote A Poem About Ukraine For St. Patrick's Day And Nancy Pelosi Read It Aloud
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a memorable choice on Thursday — St. Patrick’s Day — while hosting the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon in Washington, D.C. She read aloud a poem by Bono, in which the U2 frontman got lyrical about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“I got this message this morning from Bono,” Pelosi said in CSPAN video from the event, adding that the singer “has been a very Irish part of our lives.”
The poem was structured as a set of three limericks, and concluded with the lines, “Ireland’s sorrow and pain / Is now the Ukraine / And Saint Patrick’s name now Zelenskyy.”
Pelosi’s reading received applause and some appreciative chuckles from the audience. But many people on Twitter did not respond as positively, especially after the full text of Bono’s work began to circulate.
And here’s that poem that Pelosi says Bono sent to her this morning, from the pool report:
“Ireland's sorrow and pain/Is now the Ukraine/And Saint Patrick's name now Zelenskyy.” https://t.co/WVSTq7WVVnpic.twitter.com/a0RbeVnTcF— Dylan Wells (@dylanewells) March 17, 2022
Some took note of Bono’s decision to use the limerick, which is a form of verse traditionally associated with comedic and/or crude subjects.
It’s three limericks in a trench coat! https://t.co/vFJuWXCNUA
— Victor Brand (@recordedvoice) March 17, 2022
oh my god it's structured as a three-verse limerick (think 'there once was a man from Nantucket') https://t.co/UdZLcmyDJ8
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) March 17, 2022
Limericks are almost exclusively used for vulgar and/or humorous topics I think? This is like a world-historically inappropriate marriage of form and content
— Christopher Ingraham (@_cingraham) March 17, 2022
Others pointed out that while the poem is clearly meant to honor Ukraine, Bono called it “the Ukraine.” Ukrainians have made it clear they prefer that their country be called simply “Ukraine,” because “the Ukraine” carries historical connotations of the country being part of Russia and not its own nation.
surely nothing says "we're thoughtful and care about Ukraine and its people and pay attention to the matter with the careful and scrupulous detail we pay to choice of language elsewhere" quite like you say it by rendering the nation's name as, "*the* Ukraine"
— firstname lastname (@fennecfoxen) March 17, 2022
"The Ukraine." Jesus and Seamus Heaney wept. https://t.co/9xSvyE5c36
— Michael Weiss 🌻🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@michaeldweiss) March 17, 2022
And still more Twitter users were simply stricken by an overwhelming sense of cringe.
just kill me https://t.co/7oTKFLICnm
— josie duffy rice (@jduffyrice) March 17, 2022
My therapist: “The Bono Ukraine poem is not real. It can’t hurt you.”
The Bono Ukraine poem: https://t.co/IrNa6ZQ3mL— Natalia Antonova 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@NataliaAntonova) March 17, 2022
If Bono himself handed this to me, I’d say “Surely this is so nice you’d want to hang it on your *own* refrigerator.” And that is all.
— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) March 17, 2022
This is worse than anything the Brits ever did to us https://t.co/bGEQaouLYi
— Paul O’Connell (@pmpoc) March 17, 2022
Ok, on the one hand that's awful. On the other hand I'm now kind of looking forward to the nuclear armageddon I'd previously been worried about. So there are some positives.
— Michal Dvořák (@michaldvorak) March 17, 2022
nothing can prepare you for what Bono's St Patrick's Day poem about Ukraine actually is, or what it is the opening act for https://t.co/bW7rnkxb1Z
— Dan O'Sullivan (👻 NOW *LIVE* ON GHOST 👻 ) (@osullyville) March 17, 2022
After reading the poem, Pelosi ― as CSPAN noted in a well-crafted tweet ― introduced Riverdance.
Speaker Pelosi reads #StPatricksDay poem by Bono, which reads in part:
"Ireland's sorrow and pain
Is now the Ukraine
And Saint Patrick's name now Zelenskyy."
She then introduces Riverdance. pic.twitter.com/NzPY1VP2bN— CSPAN (@cspan) March 17, 2022
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.