{"id":31260,"date":"2014-04-02T10:55:01","date_gmt":"2014-04-02T02:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tribune.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=31260"},"modified":"2014-04-02T10:55:01","modified_gmt":"2014-04-02T02:55:01","slug":"monthlong-celebration-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/monthlong-celebration-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"A monthlong celebration of poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"

April is National Poetry Month, a monthlong, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. To mark the occasion, Tinian English teacher Joseph Connolly submitted the following poems for publication:<\/span>
\n***<\/p>\n

Waxing poetic on Ukraine and Crimea<\/strong><\/p>\n

By JOSEPH CONNOLY
\nSpecial to the Saipan Tribune<\/p>\n

Here are four classic types of poetry that I have used to deal with international headline news. Haiku, a Japanese form, is traditionally written about nature. When it is written about human matters it is called senryu. Limericks, of Irish origin, are usually funny. The 14-line sonnet as used here was usually written about love and or death. The form is called a Shakespearean or an Elizabethan sonnet. Queen Elizabeth I ruled England during a time when they flourished. Shakespeare mastered and wrote more than 150 love sonnets and his are considered to be the best of all time. The villanelle is a 16th century French style with a strict rhyme and line structure. These poems have been written over the past month as the crisis in Ukraine and the Crimean penisula has unfolded. Please enjoy these and other poems during National Poetry Month.<\/p>\n

HAIKU for UKRAINE and CRIMEA<\/p>\n

Ukrainian cold spring
\nraining down in Crimea
\nEurope twitches<\/p>\n

been through this before
\nmother bear shuts the door
\nafter Tatars home at last<\/p>\n

a river of realistic tears
\nfolks going ballistic with ethnic fears
\nCrimean linguistics<\/p>\n

A LIMERICK for the UKRAINE<\/p>\n

ex KGB boss Comrade Vladimir Putin
\nhas a mouth he seldom puts his foot in
\nhe moved on the Crimea quite quickly
\nnow the Ukraine is feeling quite sickly
\nso far at least there has been little shootin<\/p>\n

A SONNET for SEBASTABOL and CRIMEA<\/p>\n

Thousands of protestors rally out in the spring rain
\nMassed in a large city square call out for democracy
\nIn Kiev, the capitol of the Ukraine, they all long
\nTo join the European Union and be more free
\nTheir motives\u2014economic mobility\u2014quite noble
\nafter months of protest they get rid of a corrupt boss
\nunaware of coming events in the port of Sebastobol
\nwhen the whole Crimean peninsula would become a loss
\nPutin felt oustering the boss made push come to shove
\nhe took a checkmate move from his KGB master book
\nand slipped a classic Communist iron fist into a glove
\nAnnexing the entire Crimea was the chess move he took
\nNow Russian troops mass on Ukraine\u2019s eastern border
\nAs Putin puts his paratrooper knights and pawns in order<\/p>\n

SISTER COUNTRY IN CRISIS – Spring 2014
\n– a villanelle for the Ukraine & Crimea<\/p>\n

a sister country in crisis
\nbig brother bear gives it a shove
\nusing military vices
\nborders cut up into slices
\nfrom the cold east and from above
\na sister country in crisis
\nbig bear heeds its own advices
\nlittle bear squeezed by iron glove
\nhas no nuclear devices
\nTatars rank lower on indices
\nnow back in the country they love
\na sister country in crisis
\nPutin plays chess, cool cat and mices
\ncarefully plotting every move
\nusing military vices
\neagle opens its orifice
\nand offers up a peaceful dove
\nneighboring countries feel crisis
\nmoney lost in trade crevices<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Boomer Sonnets: An introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

By JOSEPH CONNOLY
\nSpecial to the Saipan Tribune<\/p>\n

BABY BOOMERS – ANOTHER DAY IN\u00a0THE LIFE<\/p>\n

We all grow older daily with every breath
\nfilling casinos, buffets, hospitals, and spas
\ndealing with aging and inevitable death
\nreplacement knees, hips, \u2019push em up\u2019 girdles and bras<\/p>\n

Spending millions on balding and dyeing gray hair
\nfalling arches, sagging guts, butts, shots of botox
\nwaking up each morning with new pains everywhere
\nspecialists give us bad news and a price that shocks<\/p>\n

Pricing new models of an electric wheel chair
\ntrying new fad diets and old vitamin spin
\nignoring our flab and farting everywhere
\nrationalizing the fattening food we eat is no sin<\/p>\n

Hoping, praying to cure our cancer and tumors
\nanother day in the life of Baby Boomers<\/p>\n

BOOMER SONNETS – THE \u2019C\u2019 LIST<\/p>\n

Copping out, coming out, cleaning out the neural cobwebs comes first
\nwhen the Boomer \u2019C\u2019 list comes along the old glass ceiling path
\nchampagne, cocaine, chilblain, children who complain of fiscal thirst
\nin the background, behind these is ” The Big C “(Cancer)\u2014you do the math<\/p>\n

Chief among killers and disease ridden Boomers today is “The Big C”
\nfrom head to toe Boomers know someone, if not themselves, with cancer
\ncures for many types seems evasive, and perhaps in some cases not to be
\nscientists young and old, in labs, in heat and in cold, search for an answer<\/p>\n

More pleasant C\u2019s can be found in cookies, cupcakes, assorted ice creameries
\ncabbage, coleslaws, corned beef, croissants, cous cous, chicken chow mein
\ncelebrated chefs, and us common folk fix food at home for Boomer\u2019s dreameries
\nlaying low now on the fancy chow and stressing the beauty of vegetables plain<\/p>\n

So chill Boomers chill, give those crippled fingers a massage for a crutch
\nbuy a \u2019green\u2019 tech Boomer car, lower your carbon footprint, and use no clutch<\/p>\n

BOOMER SONNETS – THE \u2019D\u2019 LIST<\/p>\n

DUH! don\u2019t dare to say you don\u2019t know what\u2019s on top the \u2019D\u2019 list
\nit has to be DYING or trying to avoid it, businesses exploit it daily
\nthe inevitable event Boomers wish they could somehow miss
\nso pharmacies parade pills with a charade and the pills sell gaily<\/p>\n

Death at an early age? Oh missed it? Now it comes without trying
\ncomes creeping up when you fall down, pay those insurance bills
\nwaking up everyday with a headache that won\u2019t go away, crying
\njust thinking about what you have now and about all your future ills<\/p>\n

Lay down your weary dreams and wake to a new and delightfil age
\ndig in, dig out, dance a duet, doo wop, drag more and more out
\ndon\u2019t let the \u2019D\u2019 list drag you down into Death Valley without some rage
\nget up and boogie down the desert strip with plenty of \u2019Twist and Shout\u2019<\/p>\n

Delighted now to find, now knowing better than to accept a death dirge
\ndon\u2019t delay joys, make some noise Boomers ! whenever you get the urge<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The vagaries of education philosophies<\/strong><\/p>\n

By JOSEPH CONNOLY
\nSpecial to the Saipan Tribune<\/p>\n

After over a quarter century teaching in the CNMI, before that in a hospital in New Orleans, and up in S.E. Alaska\u2019s Panhandle, I have seen many educational philosophies and movements come and go. Here is a triad of sonnets that address in a slightly humorous and somewhat skeptical manner some of those various directions education has taken. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

MOVEMENTS – common, core, life, and more\u2026<\/p>\n

Well friends, some movements are thought to be fair
\nthen there will be those believed to be fouls
\nsome movements are so small we don\u2019t even care
\nnecessary movements come from our bowels
\nthere are folks who join every single one
\nthere are those that have absolutely no choice
\nserious movements may precede some quite fun
\nhearing musical movements make us rejoice
\nthrough our lives we move from stage to stage
\nat home, at work, at school, from room to room
\nnot enjoying change sends some into a rage
\nwhile others wear masks of impending doom
\nbest roll with the punches, go along with the flow
\nlearn from each movement, you\u2019ll be in the know<\/p>\n

CONNECT the DOTS and COLOR MY BRAINBOWS<\/p>\n

So what color is inside your brain?
\nwhat color is in hers, his, or mine?
\nEmergenetics tries hard to explain
\ngiving brains some colors to define
\nso if you think socially with your head
\nyou\u2019re in a brain state colored red
\nif conceptual thought gives pause to mellow
\nyou\u2019re in a brain state painted yellow
\nwhen your analytical brain thinks through and through
\nsay, \u201chey other analysts, paint me blue too\u201d
\nif a practical thinker, you practically know what I mean
\nbroccoli, lettuce, politically in? – correct, you are green
\nif this new stuff gives your brain more puckers
\n\u201cKeep on truckin\u201d\u2026there are plenty more suckers<\/p>\n

IN BLOOM\u2019S ROOM<\/p>\n

For a blueprint of taxonomy by Benjamin Bloom
\ntake a short walk through his theoretical room
\nin the beginning there was KNOWLEDGE
\nwe must not forget to mention
\nit helped us find our way through college
\ntalk specifics and grasp COMPREHENSION
\nonce we\u2019ve assessed the learning situation
\nlooking at the difference between that and this
\nthen we can start to use APPLICATION
\nand break it down to actual ANALYSIS
\nusing synergistic solutions for our SYNTHESIS
\nlearning comes through in waves of bliss
\nwe\u2019re alive and well in the realm of education
\nperhaps without fear of EVALUATION<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

April is National Poetry Month, a monthlong, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[37,21,200,772],"class_list":["post-31260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-and-style","tag-education-2","tag-life","tag-military","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}