"Not Everybody’s Bestiary (Yet)" by Rebecca Morgan Frank

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend Support Poem-a-Day October 29, 2019   Not Everybody's Bestiary (Yet)   Rebecca Morgan Frank

Then came the soft animals, the snake and octopus, slinking along. You've seen the octopus as escape artist, sneaking out of cracks and holes, hiding in a tea pot, plotting the big adventure. Now she moves through chemical reaction, the first soft robot, taking to the sea. Remember that the real thing once disassembled her own aquarium, waiting, bemused, in the remaining puddle, for her custodian to come. They say it was simply curiosity. Now imagine her robot double dismantling at will. That which we have tried to contain, swimming off into the deep, re-emerging like the snake that slithers into your garden; its trapezoidal kirigami cuts in plastic skin keep it crawling through bursts of air. An innocuous slinky in colorful garb, this robot can sidewind anywhere. Now ask why everything now harbors a weapon in your mind—do you dread the snake under your own bed? Is it the real tooth and venom you fear, or this programmed body double here? We're told of a fall, a fault built on flesh— the flesh of a fruit, the flesh of a woman— now this manmade flesh, a reptilian test of applied knowledge. Industrial sin co-starring the latest sensation: a running cockroach robot, sliding through cracks to get to you, away from you, through your walls. Extinction now eradicated, bought: replacements on order. Enter "Robotanica"—the world of the wild robot— woodpecker, dragonfly, kangaroo, child— unborn, they can all do the job. Two by two, battery-powered to keep the world moving, replacing their organic prototypes. Centipedes, spiders, ants, termites, and robobees, these are just the beginning of the evolving nation, as if someone has decided to revise, start over. This time using human labor, invention.            Copyright © 2019 by Rebecca Morgan Frank. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 29, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets. About this Poem   "I had been writing poems about medieval automata when a friend introduced me to an award-winning roboticist who kindly invited us over to dinner with his family. He showed me videos of his research and introduced me to the existence of soft robots of the sea. I began to imagine a 21st century bestiary, one populated by the strange new robot versions of natural creatures. This poem marks just the beginning—for poet, for roboticist, for the world of the future." —Rebecca Morgan Frank   Rebecca Morgan Frank is the author of Sometimes We're All Living in a Foreign Country (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2017). She is the 2019/2020 Distinguished Visiting Writer in Poetry at Bowling Green State University, and lives in Chicago, Illinois. Poetry by Frank   Sometimes We're All Living in a Foreign Country (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2017) "The Radio Animals" by Matthea Harvey "Vestigial Bones" by Rajiv Mohabir "Fast" by Jorie Graham October Guest Editor: Oliver de la Paz   Thanks to Oliver de la Paz, author of five collections of poetry, including The Boy in the Labyrinth (University of Akron Press, 2019), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month's weekdays. Read a Q&A with Paz about his curatorial approach this month and find out more about our guest editors for the year. A culture break, a source of daily renewal...   If reading Poem-a-Day has become a meaningful part of your day, please consider supporting this free series with a donation. Your gift makes publishing Poem-a-Day possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit poets.org   Unsubscribe here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038

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