Irony as a rhetorical device is a situation in which there is a contrast between expectation and reality.
For example,
in the garden
the dwindling petals
of the daffodil
the blessing of a death
from natural causes
Marianne Paul
The image of Ls 1-3 is visually and emotionally poignant while the tonal shift in the dialectical statement of Ls 4&5 sparks the reader's emotions and reflection on life and (good) death. Paul's tanka doesn't mention of the pandemic. Even so, the attentive reader can get a hint from this dialectical irony of Ls 4&5 (in the time of Covid19): to see blessing in a death from natural causes, which means being allowed to die surrounded by family and friends.
Another example,
even someone
free of passion as myself
feels sorrow:
snipe rising from a marsh
at evening in autumn
Buddhist monk-poet Saigyo
A Buddhist monk is supposed to be detached from the "world of red dust," a Buddhist set-phrase for the world and its suffering and passions, as stated in ls 1&2, but but ironically, this conscious detachment leads to an awareness of the transience of the world depicted in Ls 4&5, which inspires feelings of pathos as described in L3.
Visually and emotionally speaking, this self-referential irony, a contrast between religious expectation and emotional/lived reality is effectively depicted in Buddhist monk-poet Saigyo’s tanka.
On more timely and sociopolitically conscious example for your reading pleasure/reflection on the Divided States of America:
defeated
and impeached twice ...
on the news ticker
Florida man announces
I'm running again
FYI: My tanka was inspired by Deadline, Nov. 16: “Florida Man Makes Announcement”: New York Post Buries Donald Trump’s 2024 Announcement As Others In GOP Shun Mar-A-Lago Event
“Florida man makes announcement,” ran a headline on the bottom of the front page, referring to the former president and Celebrity Apprentice star. The story was buried on page 26.
Added:
no water
no heating, no internet
no Russians either ...
in the morning chill a sea
of blue and yellow flags
Added: Game Show 2024, XI
written in response to Independent, Nov. 18: Trump’s racist rhetoric was blamed for a 145% rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the Covid19 pandemic. Now he’s at it again
thunderclouds
the neighbour's Trump 2024
crowned with crows
FYI: Ridiculously photogenic Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has been TALKING about the fight against anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, while his American counterpart, Joe Biden, signed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act -- the bill addressing hate crimes against Asian-Americans, into law four moths after he took office.
“My message to all those of you who are hurting is, we see you... And the Congress has said, we see you. And we are committed to stopping the hatred and the bias.
-- Joe Biden
Added:
Clean Toronto Together
one by one
tent cities dismantled
amidst drifting snow
the mayor wears a smile
for the camera
will my bed
be far enough away
from my neighbour’s ...
a masked old man murmurs
by the shelter entrance
weareall
inthistogerther, t o g e t h e r
facing the challenges
politicians of all stripes
at each other's throats
Added: Game Show 2024, XII
in Florida sunshine
I'll run for president
again
to thunderous applause ...the crowd
in the psych ward garden
Added: Three Hundred and Fifty-Fifth Entry, Coronavirus Poetry Diary
The Moon Is Bigger and Rounder Abroad
staring
into the TV camera
the official
announces new Covid rules...
these ifs, buts, and maybes
masked women
with oversized hoods
hold blank sheets
of heart-shaped red paper ...
Chinese Embassy in twilight
another protester
grabbed from a Beijing street
by the police
put into a crowded jail
while Covid curbs are loosened ...
FYI: The Atlantic, Health, Dec. 6: China’s COVID Wave Is Coming: The world’s most populous nation is being forced onto a zero-COVID off-ramp.
... China represents, in many ways, SARS-CoV-2’s final frontier. With its under-vaccinated residents and sparse infection history, the nation harbors “a more susceptible population than really any other large population I can think of,” says Sarah Cobey, an computational epidemiologist at the University of Chicago. Soon, SARS-CoV-2 will infiltrate that group of hosts so thoroughly that it will be nearly impossible to purge again. “Eventually, just like everyone else on Earth, everyone in China should expect to be infected,” says Michael Worobey, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Arizona.
What Hong Kong endured earlier this year may hint at what’s ahead. “They had a really, really bad wave,” Kayoko Shioda, an epidemiologist at Emory University, told me—far dwarfing the four that the city had battled previously. Researchers have estimated that nearly half the city’s population—more than 3 million people—ended up catching the virus. More than 9,000 residents died.
Lackluster vaccination isn’t China’s only issue. The country has accumulated almost no infection-induced immunity that might otherwise have updated people’s bodies on recent coronavirus strains. The country’s health-care system is also ill-equipped to handle a surge in demand
extricate.
Next month’s Lunar New Year celebration, too, could spark further spread. And as the weather cools and restrictions relax, other respiratory viruses, such as RSV and flu, could drive epidemics of their own.
A major COVID outbreak in China would also have unpredictable effects on the virus. The world’s most populous country includes a large number of immunocompromised people, who can harbor the virus for months—chronic infections that are thought to have produced variants of concern before. The world may be about to witness “a billion or more opportunities for the virus to evolve,” Cowling told me.
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