Tui Bevin
My father lost his English three times. Once, he reverted to his mother language when he was very ill in intensive care while visiting Germany, but his English returned as he recovered. However he lost it twice more before he died in Dunedin Hospital ten years later.
Dad grew up in Denmark and lived in New Zealand for his last fifty years. His enjoyment of words, languages and bilingual jokes is an important part of how I remember him. It’s not surprising therefore, that the issue of language emerged when I wrote a series of poems about my parents.
I am a forensic anthropologist. No, not like 
On Tuesday morning I was sitting at my desk working on this article, struggling to put my research into comprehensible sentences by avoiding any scientific jargon that would drive my potential reader(s) away. That was when I came across this cartoon. A pregnant woman is putting on a brave face, saying that her pregnancy is going “just fine”, when the truth is nowhere close! Her thought bubble precisely sums up everything a pregnant woman is most likely to face during those precious nine months of her pregnancy. Although I was spared the varicose veins, thank God!
Billed as a “one day extravaganza of poetry”, New Zealand’s