[Roger Slater]

The Panda

The panda bear was never meant
to flourish on this continent.
At best it can digest a few
green shoots of succulent bamboo.
Its young are born so very small
it needs to be marsupial.
The animal so plainly jinxed
should properly have been extinct.
Yet no fund-raising propaganda
works as well as “Save the Panda!”
Why? Because we can't resist
this furry, fat contortionist
whose two heart-melting blackened eyes
would win the Nobel cuteness prize.
So if you have a worthy cause
for which you need the world's applause
and pots of cash – or all is lost -
be cute. Be cute at any cost.
.
.

[Roger Slater]

Pat Lewis:

Poem 10‘s “furry, fat contortionist” bids fair to merit inclusion in a Belloc bestiary or a Jack Prelutsky collection, even though no line in the poem is nonsensical--or needs to be.

[John Whitworth]

Yes. Three cheers for the Panda.

[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

Cynical, but wonderful. My kids are batty for pandas and would be drawn to this instantly on subject matter alone. Some great rhymes and details. A favorite, for sure.

Marybeth

[Richard Meyer]

A well-crafted and witty verse. Effective rhymes. The first ten lines are made up of end stopped couplets, but then this pattern, which could become a bit wearisome or overly mechanical if carried on for too long, changes to four-line grammatical units with enjambments. Well done. I like it.

Richard

[Jayne Osborn]

Why? Because we can't resist
this furry, fat contortionist
whose two heart-melting blackened eyes
would win the Nobel cuteness prize.

Brilliant. Delightful.

[Catherine Chandler]

My favorite so far! For kids -- of all ages.

[Max Goodman]

Well done. Lots of fun.

[Maryann Corbett]

There's actually a very dark undercurrent to this one too, particularly in the last line. Extinction, financial need, and the idea "cute at any cost" put this one in the teenager range, I think, cuteness quotient notwithstanding. But it's a very enjoyable poem.

[Spindleshanks]

This has tons of appeal and is certainly among the very best of the offerings so far, insofar as poetry goes. I wonder, though, at what age the concepts would be grasped.

As I've read these poems, I've tried to gauge the response of my seven grandchildren, ranging in age from 2 to 16, to each of them. I imagine this would have particular appeal to 12 y.o. Jordan, who has an affinity with dinosaurs and volcanoes, but he's unusually quick to grasp concepts beyond his peers and years. Or am I being precious about my grandkids? Maybe. I'm confident that it would be beyond 4 y.o. Taiha.

My present feeling is that, delightful as the poem is, the diction presses it toward the high end of the kid-scale, without the saving grace of the catchy wordplay devices that carry #6, for example.

But I might change my mind.

Meantime, it works for me. Love the wry close.