National Poultry Month, At Last
After a long, hard winter that had us huddled in our respective nests, April is finally here and it’s time to hatch our best haiku, villanelles, sonnets, sestinas, pantoums, ghazals, ballads, odes, and catalog poems for National Poultry Month.
To get you started, we’ve tapped our inner avian impulses (no pecking order here; just because we’re the first doesn’t mean you can’t pip your way to break-out poultry that will claim top billing on the National Poultry Month roost.)
It’s a free range, after all. And we’re pretty sure you can incubate verse that will have our readers perched on the edge of their poultry seats.
Not sure where to start? Comb one of the resources below and try out a jealous poem stack before moving on to something more challenging like writing in form.
Okay, our dear, fun peeps: Scratch us a poulem for National Poultry Month and help spread the vision of Poultry for Life. Tweet us at @tspoetry and we’ll share some of our faves. Not sure where to begin? Try out this clutch of resources:
The Glossary of Poultry Terms
City Girl Chickens
Keeping Chickens
Feel Free to Share About National Poultry Month!
The Five Vital Approaches to Poultry for Life
Poultry Poems
from A Certain Weariness, by Pablo Neruda
from Chain Ghazal: Chickens, by Esther Greenleaf Mürer
from Chicken Pig, by Jennifer Michael Hecht
from Market Forecast, by Alexa Selph
from A Story About Chicken Soup, by Louis Simpson
from Passing a Truck Full of Chickens At Night on Highway Eighty, by Jane Mead
The Great Poultry Book Club Reads How to Read a Poem
- Celebrate! A Christmas Carol Illustrated + Poetry Prompt - December 7, 2022
- Making Peace With Paradise—Celebrate + Poetry Prompt! - September 15, 2022
- Summer Respite + Take Your Poet to Work Day - July 15, 2022
Charity Singleton Craig says
Oh my gosh! I LOVE this. Very, very fun.
michelle ortega says
Just what the doctor, or the leader, ordered. Right? 😉
L. L. Barkat says
That makes us happy 🙂
(And maybe you’ll forgive the book club post being moved to tomorrow to make room for poultry? 😉 )
Monica Sharman says
Beware the Vital Approaches
The number 2 is “Bring it home”—vital
for me, deadly for you. See, I am
a chef, full of pluck, using only
the freshest of ingredients.
If I bring you home, it will be
straight to the kitchen.
My grocery list says tamari sauce,
cilantro, and, worst of all,
garlic, all of which spell
a poem you may not want to read.
L. L. Barkat says
Monica, too fun. 🙂
I guess all the chickens will have to come to my place for their poems today. (Vegetarian. No danger 😉 )
Simply Darlene says
full of pluck
indeed!
🙂
michelle ortega says
a poem you may not want to read, but maybe eat. 🙂
Richard Maxson says
Cluck, cluck, beeock!
Maureen Doallas says
Fun poem, Monica. Richard’s sound effects definitely animate the piece.
Donna Z Falcone says
I hear Emily Litella giggling on the breeze today. hee hee …
Dylan K Mathews says
*What’s all this I’ve been hearing about the necking order? Why would anyone possibly need an order to neck in?*
No Emily; that’s ‘pecking’ order.
*Oh. That’s different. Never mind.*
L. L. Barkat says
Ha. 🙂 If you are an Emily Litella fan, you have friends here you didn’t know you had 🙂
Donna Z Falcone says
Emily was truly one of our greatest natural race horses. 😉
Donna Z Falcone says
But, how do you feel about violins in schools? 😉
Donna Z Falcone says
Never mind seems appropriate…. but how do you feel about violins on television.
Richard Maxson says
http://tinyurl.com/mczxjuh
A chicken whose name was Chantecler
Clucked in iambic pentameter
It sat on a shelf, reading Song of Myself
And laid eggs with a perfect diameter.
Simply Darlene says
RIchard – OhMyHaHa!
Donna Z Falcone says
😀 😀 😀
michelle ortega says
HA! 🙂
Richard Maxson says
And this…
Do I dare disturb the laying hen?
Do I dare to eat an egg, and when?
michelle ortega says
for breakfast, two in fact, every morning. 🙂
Simply Darlene says
You’ve got impecable timing with this feathered feature…
Saturday afternoon whilst shaking
loose produce scraps I
tumbled into the chicken yard –
(a flailing surprise
for the squawkers). They
clamored and clucked and
ran like the chickens
they are. My dog and
my son came running. One
growled. The other yelled. I
moaned a bit then mended fence
with bailing twine and foul
words. As the cluckers shy-picked,
cautious-pecked at their buffet, I changed
my smashed tomato, squishy
cucumber, and burnt crust clothes.
Richard Maxson says
Love this:
“They
clamored and clucked and
ran like the chickens
they are.”
michelle ortega says
simply grace. embodied. hee hee hee! 🙂
Maureen Doallas says
Eggceeds all eggspectations!
Richard Maxson says
Somebody stop me!!!
Famous Chicken Lit poems:
My coop lights burn at both ends,
please let me sleep I beg.
and worse, my foes, and fie, my friends,
you also eat my legs.
—Mil Lay
***
April is the coolest month, setting
chickens free of the frying pan, giving
free range to the Easter Eggers, stirring
hearts and minds at their roots.
—from The Eggland, Burial of the Egg
Maureen Doallas says
Richard, your “Mil Lay” is my favorite. I have friend who is a Millay scholar. I might share this with her.
Richard Maxson says
Ah! Please do. I will await the analysis.:)
Will Willingham says
Not kidding. Could’ve used you all when I was hatching chicken comics. 🙂 Love all of these.
michelle ortega says
Here’s a jealous stack:
how to tackle this chicken poem
chicken fingers (even though chickens have feathers)
roasted chicken with a side of mac and cheese
chicken cacciatore (a little spicy with baby bella mushrooms over a pile of penne)
chicken francese marsala angelo and parmesean
chicken parmesean with a side of penne and a glass of wine for lunch on Thursdays
chicken cutlets (breaded, not the kind you stick in your bra to make your boobs bigger, thankfully i don’t need those at all)
i just wrote “boobs” in public, thanks Anne Lamott
i’m sweating a little because i wrote “boobs” in public
popcorn chicken
chicken a la king
chicken pot pie
buffalo chicken wings
buffalo chicken wrap
broiled chicken sandwich
grilled chicken, with bacon on a roll,
and some avocado.
what would julia child say about all this chicken??
SimplyDarlene says
crack me up, you did!
Richard Maxson says
This brought all kinds of things to my mind, Michelle! Julia, I’m sure, would relish all of these.
I would relish the last one most and now I’m hungry at 4 o’clock a.m.
In this last week I have now witnessed posts involving poo and boobs. I would sweat too much. George Carlin may be squirming in his grave a little.
michelle ortega says
Haha Rick! I LOVE George Carlin!
Richard Maxson says
That meant to say, I wouldn’t sweat too much. Yes, I love him too. I think these might have made his forbidden word list back when. Now it seems not much is too much.
Maureen Doallas says
Chicken . . . The Versatile Meat
Great stack, Michelle.
Two things I have trouble getting beyond: the image of chicken “fingers” and the image of chicken “lips”.
Maureen Doallas says
To be sung to the tune of “Home, home on the range”:
Oh, pen them a home
Let no rooster there roam
Till it’s time for the Brahmas to lay
Make the hens’ duty each day
to drop an egg where they may
What replays in the hay they’ll bemoan.
Richard Maxson says
Nice one!
Chicken farmers will be playing this in their coops to increase production.
Maureen Doallas says
Thanks, Richard!
Maureen Doallas says
Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens – A Found Poem
Do you remember, I held empty hands to you
without a thought of eggs and bacon?
Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain,
waiting fulfillment. . .
It was all very simple:
Last night I dreamed of chickens.
____________________________
Title: Jack Prelutsky, “Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens”
Carl Sandburg, “Potato Blossom Songs and Jigs”
Lewis Carroll, “Lays of Sorrow”
Philip Larkin, “Wedding Wind”
Amy Lowell, “Thompsons Lunch Room – Grand Central Station”
Richard Brautigan, “Trout Fishing in America”
Jack Pretlusky, “Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens”
(Punctuation/capitalization my own)
Richard Maxson says
Very imaginative, Maureen.
michelle ortega says
Brilliant! 🙂
L. L. Barkat says
Love. Something quite poignant about this.
Maureen Doallas says
Thank you, everyone!
Erica Hale says
These are wonderful! Here’s a (sort of a) Chicken poem…
Chicken
“are you chicken,”
he taunted.
squint-eyed and red cheeked, with all
those freckles splashed across his pug nose
i look from his leering grin to my
yellow flip-flop, bobbing in the pool
like a duck in azure water
just beyond my reach.
do I stretch out to retrieve it, risk
the shove i know is coming
or go home, shoeless
and face the wrath of mom?
everyone is watching as i stand paralyzed
by indecision and then, suddenly
he’s gone. submerged in a splash of water
his fat arms pumping, mouth yelling
my sister shoved him in
and the tidal wave of his humiliation
brought the yellow flip-flop to my
waiting hand.
Richard Maxson says
Yolk yellow flip-flops, I presume. Chicken karma?
Megan Willome says
Delightful! The creativity in these astounds me.
Maureen Doallas says
No Time to Lay – A Found Poem
I hate to admit this:
I am nude as a chicken neck.
I’m in the backyard on a quilt
beyond the coop.
Yes, a real-life chick—
white as the snow that never falls.
Red sun is burning out.
The dog lets out a howl.
I think I’m going to die.
(Capitalization/punctuation my own)
___________________________
Title: Jane Finch, “No Time to Lay”
1 Linh Dinh, “Eating Fried Chicken”
2 Sylvia Plath, “The Bee Meeting”
3-4 Bruce Weigl, “Killing Chickens”
5 Joseph Estes, “My Easter Chick Shang Hi”
6 Kelli Webb, “How to Eat Fried Chicken”
7 Bruce Weigl, “Killing Chickens”
8 Jane Finch, “The Chicken Farm (Part 1)”
9 Tenekia Balfour-Mitchell, “Craving for jerk chicken”
Richard Maxson says
Here’s a song adaptation. A sad chicken song. I’ll ask that you pretend you hear Bonnie Raitt doing it. Photo included.
http://theimaginedjay.com/silkie-from-the-country/
Diana Trautwein says
Great post – great comment list. Amazing.
lynn__ says
This conversation is all very fresh and funny! May I lay some scrambled eggs on the table?
I think that I will never see a thing as
lovely as a turkey (struttin’ his stuffin’)
Writing poultry requires scratching
…and a bit of gravel in the gizzard
Why did the chicken cross the road?
He wanted to be poultry in motion!
Fine feathered friends don’t let
hens drive to live poultry slams
Worried about Poultry in my
Pocket Day? Find a cute chick!
Richard Maxson says
🙂 🙂
Richard Maxson says
I hope this doesn’t post the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5UQTggKDaM
Just because it’s Easter 🙂
Peep
When you were here last year,
I couldn’t do much but sigh.
You looked so delicious,
your ears stood so high,
so brown and majestic
in a beautiful pose,
so tall and so special.
I wish I were special,
But I’m a peep,
I’m all yellow,
just a chicken with beady eyes;
made of marshmallow.
I don’t care if it hurts.
I wanna be your friend.
I wanna be milk chocolate,
not hollow but whole.
I want you to see me,
down here in the grass.
You look so delicious.
I wish I were chocolate.
But I’m a peep,
I’m all yellow,
just a chicken with beady eyes;
made of marshmallow.
Callie Feyen says
Well, I don’t have poultry to share with you, but my students and I are studying Romeo and Juliet in class and after reading about Mercutio’s and Tybalt’s deaths, we wrote “Lazy Sonnets.” It was a nice practice for when a story is traumatic or filled with sorrow, and words are hard to capture. I thought I’d share them with you:http://www.calliefeyen.com/?p=3261
Renee Oelschlaeger says
I’m late to the poultry party, but here’s a poultry poem that has been well received on my blog.
http://wiseblooding.com/2014/03/20/paltry-poetry/
Alexa Arteaga says
Mother Hen
Mother Hen watches over her eggs closely
Keeping them warm
As she awaits the hatching of her little eggs
She is excited
For her soon to be little family
She settles her ruffled feathers
But ever so suddenly
A large claw-like hand reaches in
Disturbing the peace in mother hens coop
The hand reaches under her feathers
Taking away her soon to be family
Mother hen squawked and screeched
Pecking away angrily at that monstrous beast
How dare that horrid being take away her beloved little eggs?
Her lovey almost babies
Who would never take their first breath
Then she was left alone
Without any trace of family
None of her squawking and screeching
Would be of an use
Mother hen was left without a family
And left without a clue