Day 4 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2024

April 4 . . . today is renowned poet Maya Angelou's birthday. Brava! Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “[W]rite a poem in which you take your title or some language/ideas from The Strangest Things in the World. First published in 1958, the book gives shortish descriptions of odd natural phenomena, and is notable for both its author’s turn of phrase and intermittently dubious facts.” Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[W]rite a mistake poem.” I rummaged around in The Strangest Things in the World — what a fun, quirky book! — and found a short essay on "The Fourth Realm of Life," which discusses the various fauna of forest canopies around the world. I was intrigued in that essay by the Tamandua, an arboreal anteater in South America. I borrowed a bit of language from the essay's description of the tamandua. Here's a curtal sonnet again, mixing both prompts as usual. Tamandua Rainforest canopy, South America, the cutest anteater you will ever see: the tamandua, which lives on termites up in the trees, stretching its long sticky tongue inside their nests. Its fur — soft, silky — might induce you to pet one. Don’t do it. Huge mistake! The tamandua is a Marvel Wolverine in the wild. Each claw’s three scimitar talons can rip your belly out in half a second. Your last mistake. Still,                               it’s pretty darn cute. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks! Ingat, everyone.  ヅ

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