Wendelin Law

In this deeply subversive poem, the poet wields satire as a weapon, exposing the fault lines and lies of dictators and the regimes they build around themselves. This poem seemed rich in references as well – I heard echoes of John Donne in here in the repeated ‘Oh my dictator, my dictator’ which made me think of ‘O my America, my newfound land’ and of course Tina Turner later on: ‘Rivers and oceans are deep, but not as deep as the love of a tyrant.’ I think it is a wonderful and original poem in its own right, but to send an ode that apparently lavishes praise on a tyrannical leader into a competition asking for ‘Protest’ poetry was a wonderfully bold and irreverent move.