{"id":12007,"date":"2012-07-27T14:00:38","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T19:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=12007"},"modified":"2012-07-27T03:52:20","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T08:52:20","slug":"former-green-beret-to-read-poetry-at-apsu-on-august-30th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2012\/07\/27\/former-green-beret-to-read-poetry-at-apsu-on-august-30th\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Green Beret to read poetry at APSU on August 30th"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – In 1993, a young Green Beret named Joe Shakeenab sought shelter from the hot sun in the African nation of Somalia. Sitting in his combat fatigues under the shade of a tent, he pulled out a notebook and a pencil and began scribbling a few lines of verse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re gone on deployments, that\u2019s the way you go on with yourself, just to maintain your own mind,\u201d he said. \u201cI wrote about what I\u2019d seen and what I thought. I told the experiences through poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/a>

Joe Shakeenab<\/p><\/div>\n

Almost 20 years later, Shakeenab gathered those works together and published them in his recent book of poetry, \u201cSomalia, Moments of Visions and Voices.\u201d At 11:30am, and again at 4:30pm, on August 30th, Shakeenab will give a reading from his two books of poetry in the Austin Peay State University Wilbur N. Daniel African American Cultural Center (Room 120 in the Clement Building). The event is free and open to the public, and a book signing will follow both readings.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has a really interesting background, and he\u2019s also an APSU alum,\u201d Henderson Hill, director of the cultural center, said. \u201cI think it\u2019s very important that we as a department, we as an institution, that we support alumni and friends of the institution just as they\u2019ve supported us. And he has been a very strong, positive supporter of the center and the institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shakeenab will also read from his book \u201cA Widow\u2019s Son, Philosophical Enlightenment,\u201d which uses poetry to explore his experiences growing up without a father. He hopes his works will provide both inspiration and guidance to the young students at the readings because that is his motivation for writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did 28 years in the military, 20 years in Special Forces,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m blessed. I have all my limbs. A lot of guys get blown up. I\u2019ve actually made it, and I want to help somebody else. You can help these students. And every book I sell at this scheduled event, I\u2019m going to donate that money to the center for their scholarship program.\u201d<\/p>\n

For information on Shakeenab, visit his website shakeenab.com.<\/p>\n

The August 30th reading is just the first in a yearlong series of cultural events hosted by the center. A listing of upcoming events is available online at http:\/\/www.apsu.edu\/aacc\/calendar-events-0.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarksville, TN – In 1993, a young Green Beret named Joe Shakeenab sought shelter from the hot sun in the African nation of Somalia. Sitting in his combat fatigues under the shade of a tent, he pulled out a notebook and a pencil and began scribbling a few lines of verse. \u201cWhen you\u2019re gone on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[23,6671,262,825,2085,15670,5965,15671,6703,15672],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-37F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12007"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12007"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12009,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12007\/revisions\/12009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}