Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Poet Laura: I Read Poems to Some Chickens!

By Tania Runyan 3 Comments

Chickens in the Snow
The fourth item on my list of required duties as Tweetspeak’s first official Poet Laura is to “read a poem to a chicken, write a poem to a chicken, or do both.” Because art is about suffering, I decided to choose a 19-degree day in late February to accomplish this lofty task.

“What kind of poetry should I read to them?” I messaged my friend Lizzie, who keeps four chickens in her backyard. I’ve made many delicious omelets from Bessie, Susie, Luna, and Agnes’s offerings, and it was time to repay them with literature of the highest caliber.

“I’m not sure. You might need to experiment.”

Instincts told me to grab The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson on my way out the door.

Lizzie coaxed the four lovely ladies from their heated coop with a fresh tomato and freeze-dried mealworms. They descended their wooden ramp with the glamour of young women coming down the stairs for prom. I pulled up a tiny metal stool Lizzie wrenched from the frozen tundra, waited for her to go back inside, opened my book, and began:

I am afraid to own a Body –
I am afraid to own a Soul –
Profound – precarious Property –
Possession, not optional––

Double Estate – entailed at pleasure
Upon an unsuspecting Heir –

It’s a pretty intense six lines, but I received no response but pecking, clucking, and … warbling? Whatever the longer, drawn-out chicken sounds are called, there were plenty of them coming from Luna, the glossy black hen, to accompany my recitation.

Poet Laura Reads Poetry to Chickens

My friends Bessie, Agnes, Luna, and Susie


 
As appropriate for the frozen tundra of our far-north Illinois village, I happened to turn to “1444” next, this time incorporating expressive hand motions for effect:

A little Snow was here and there
Disseminated in her Hair –
Since she and I had met and played
Decade had gathered to Decade –

But Time had added not obtained
Impregnable the Rose
For summer too indelible
Too obdurate for Snows –

It was at this point that my fingers, though gloved, began to lose feeling. I reached out to stripy Agnes, the one Lizzie says likes to snuggle up in human laps, but got no love. When it’s that cold outside, you focus on ingesting as many mealworms as possible before retreating back to your heated straw bed.

That’s when I glanced a few poems down and discovered the gem otherwise known as “1448:”

Tweetspeak Poet Laura ChickenHow soft a Caterpillar steps –
I find one on my Hand
From such a velvet world it comes
Such plushes at command
Its soundless travels just arrest
My slow – terrestrial eye
Intent upon its own career
What use has it for me –

As much as I wanted to cuddle up with these plump bundles of hope with feathers, they had no use for me, at least today. And that was okay. There’s something comforting about living in a natural world that does just splendidly without my help, thankyouverymuch. Hearing my own voice in the crystallized air that was quickly approaching dusk, underscored by the chickeny songs of happy feasting, was a moment of peaceful, humble solitude. I imagined Emily looking out her window in Amherst over 150 years ago and smiling.

All in all, I probably spent 20 minutes reading poems to chickens before my backside began to glaciate atop the icy metal stool. I had to bid them adieu. I’m planning on returning in the spring or summer, though, for another session. What poets should I bring with me next time? I’ll take requests.

Featured photo by Linda,  Creative Commons license via Flickr. Post and photo of Bessie, Agnes, Luna and Susie by Tania Runyan.

Browse more Poet Laura

__________________________

How to Read a Poem by Tania RunyanHow to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.

“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”

—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

BUY HOW TO READ A POEM NOW!

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Tania Runyan
Tania Runyan
Tania Runyan lives in Lindenhurst, Illinois, a sort-of suburb, sort-of small town, where the deer and the minivans play. She's a 2011 NEA fellow and mama to four poetry books—A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, Delicious Air, and What Will Soon Take Place—and three (much cuter and noisier) human children. Tania is also the author of five non-fiction books—Making Peace with Paradise, How To Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, How to Write a Form Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay. Visit her at TaniaRunyan.com
Tania Runyan
Latest posts by Tania Runyan (see all)
  • Flowers of California: California Poppy - December 8, 2022
  • Flowers of California: Lily of the Nile - October 13, 2022
  • Flowers of California: Crape Myrtle - October 5, 2022

Filed Under: Blog, Chicken poems, Emily Dickinson, Poet Laura

Try Every Day Poems...

About Tania Runyan

Tania Runyan lives in Lindenhurst, Illinois, a sort-of suburb, sort-of small town, where the deer and the minivans play. She's a 2011 NEA fellow and mama to four poetry books—A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, Delicious Air, and What Will Soon Take Place—and three (much cuter and noisier) human children. Tania is also the author of five non-fiction books—Making Peace with Paradise, How To Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, How to Write a Form Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay. Visit her at TaniaRunyan.com

Comments

  1. Laura Lynn Brown says

    March 5, 2020 at 2:04 pm

    I think Luna was letting you know she enjoyed your reading.

    Possibilities:

    “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams

    “Home to Roost” by Kay Ryan

    “Woman Feeding Chickens” by Roy Scheele

    “Eating the Whole Egg” by Luci Shaw

    Reply
    • Will Willingham says

      March 7, 2020 at 9:39 am

      I was thinking the same. The chickens would definitely enjoy the wheelbarrow.

      Reply
      • Laura Lynn Brown says

        March 7, 2020 at 10:06 am

        Though they might cluck that just as much depends on them.

        Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Sandra Fox Murphy on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Glynn on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”
  • Bethany R. on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy