Turtles All the Way: Poems

In 2013 a New York Times headline proclaimed that turtles are “Coldblooded, but Surprisingly Smart.” These poems cry out the echo of that proclamation, especially for Rosemary Lombard’s long-time turtle colleagues at the Chelonian Connection cognition laboratory. In these poems we meet a sea turtle lazing above the anemones; a box turtle entranced by the harvest moon or demonstrating her understandings and skills; a pancake tortoise enraged by poachers and dealers who steal him from his African life on a hill above the savanna; and a tortoise helping with a frog jigsaw puzzle in “Puzzle” (a winner in an environmental-themed gallery exhibit and Oregon Poetry Association contest). Welcome to the world of the shelled!