We'd Like to Be... Under the Sea!

Aye, aye, Captain, full speed ahead! On April 11, 1900, the United States Navy acquired its first submarine, the Holland-- a 53-foot gasoline and electric powered vessel designed by Irish immigrant John Holland. Ideas for underwater boats date back to the late sixteenth century; the first submersible was tested in the early seventeenth century by a Dutch inventor.
Over the years,  deep-sea dreamers continued to experiment with submarine design; David Bushnell's American Turtle helped the Patriot cause during the Revolutionary War. Steamboat inventor Robert Fulton built a submarine for Napoleon Bonaparte in 1800. Underwater crafts were used in the War of 1812 and in the Civil War.  And in 1869, French author Jules Verne published the science fiction classic Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, the story of mysterious Captain Nemo and his Nautilus.  By the opening days of World War I, submarines like the Holland  floated with naval fleets around the world.  Our first Submarine Day poem dives beneath the waves with a funny Irish poet: 

A Baby Sardine

A baby sardine

Saw her first submarine:

She was scared and watched through a peephole.

"Oh come, come, come,"

Said the sardine's mum.

"It's only a tin full of people." 

-- Spike Mulligan

Once upon a time, four lads from Liverpool, England-- John, Paul, George, and Ringo-- sang a song with catchy submarine lyrics: 

So we sailed on to the sun,
Till we found the sea of green,
And we lived beneath the waves,
In our yellow submarine....

 The Beatles, one of the most successful rock bands of all time, released Yellow Submarine in 1966: the song remains popular today--above and below the waves!  We continue our celebration of Submarine Day with American puppeteer Jim Henson's Muppets performing The Beatles' Yellow Submarine:

 

Poetry on Parade is going to sea... and under the sea, we're going to see and hear all sorts of amazing things... like Lola, the Singing Octopus:

I'm in love with Lola the Octopus

and the angelic way that she sings.

Oh, how I wish I could marry her

but who can afford eight rings? 

-- James Proimos

The Beatles included a song called Octopus's Garden on their 1969 Abbey Road album.  We wonder... can our undersea friends with four pairs of arms compose eight submarine poems at a time?

Aye, aye, Captain, full speed ahead!  Poetry on Parade likes to be... under the sea... in an Octopus's Garden on Submarine Day!