Zot and the Axolotl is the Tuesday Poem this week

For its title alone, the hub poem on the Tuesday Poem site is a delight. But don't stop there, the whole poem, by Wellington poet Janis Freegard is delightful and envigorating and comes from Janis'

collection (just out) Kingdom of Animalia The Escapades of Linnaeus (AUP).

The TP editor this week, Saradha Koirala, says 'The poems "explore the various interactions between human beings and other animals, but also deals with wider subjects: love and loss, evolution and conservation, sex and death." Freegard has arranged the animal-themed poems according to eighteenth-century naturalist Carl Linnaeus' classification system of the natural world.'

After engaging with Zot and the Axolotl, flick your eyes to the blog sidebar where poets from NZ, Australia, the US and UK post Tuesday Poems they've written or have permission to run. This week there are some delightful and envigorating diversions including links to audio of Kate Camp reading her poem Mute, a video of a 3-year-old reading aloud Billy Collins' Litany, a 'poem' of candles for the people of Christchurch and a one-word poem courtesy of avant-garde poet Orchid Tierney that shakes the word up and makes the reader see it differently.

There are a few poems this week that write about a journey - real or allegorical - human or ant-like, and others which take a journey into love in all its guises.  And from Helen Lowe, a poem about yesterday's quake in Christchurch, which is one of those terrible journeys that appears to have no end.

Be envigorated. Go to www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com