Young Writers Society

Hi Holy! I missed the trend of chicken poems last year, but I wanted to revisit it after it was reference in RevMo's checklist challenge ^^ So here I am!

I really enjoyed this poem! It was really sweet and had a heart warming end pun intended, which coupled with the frosty imagery throughout the piece. Admittedly, I read the author's note before I read the rest of the piece, so I had an idea of where it would be going, which did make the poem a bit easier to read. But I love the image of a hen cuddling her human friend and caretaker in the lightly drifting snow! It gives a really calming, even hopeful feeling throughout, which I quite liked ^^

Personally, I feel the flow of this poem is one of the weaker parts. You clearly have a lot of beautiful imagery thrown around, and I think you build up and develop the themes and ideas well, but some of the lines come off as kind of choppy and disconnected from one another. This may also be a matter of personal preference, but I find it much easier to read poetry which is comprised of sentences, or lines that feel like they have some consistent subject and predicate. While the lines on their own are nice, they don't feel quite easily connected, and I find that I am pausing a lot between them.

As an example, here is the start of the poem:

her feathers floofed around her / tucked in the crook of an arm- / an embrace that peaked brows.

Reading this as a single line gives it a really disconnected feeling. The subject of the first line is the feathers, but the subject of the second line shifts to the hen without any warning, and the third line is about the embrace. It may help to have a bit of consistency, focusing on the feathers for a line or two, then transitioning to image of her tucked in (I do love the phrase "tucked in the crook of an arm!" It has a very cozy feeling to it ^^). Later on in the poem, there are more nice descriptions but they don't have clear subjects, just implied ones, and it again gives a more choppy reading to me. It may be something you'd want to play around with if you come back to edit this

I think the poem really hits its stride in the second part of it, and I especially love the last three lines:

her keeper pulled the wool coat tighter around them, / knowing full well that snow-drifts and icicles / wouldn’t dare disrupt a friendship conceived in summer.

It solidifies the protective nature of the hen's keeper with their strong bond, as both are willing to weather the cold for the warmth of one another. I also feel like one can even interpret this poem less literally (even if you didn't write it that way!) Someone can always feel a bit cold, maybe a bit lost like a chicken in the winter, huddling with other chickens to find warmth, but then you have your keeper, that person who just warms you up no matter the season because they love and care about you so much It's very sweet.

Thanks for writing this! Hope this helped ^^ Happy writing,
~ Wolfe

Holy, I asked for chicken poetry and you delivered! I very much enjoyed reading this, thanks for writing it!

So, let's take a look at this!

Word Choice & Imagery
You've got some very elegant word choice in here! It can be really difficult to think of multiple ways to describe snow beyond just snow, white flakes etc. but you vary your descriptions in different ways to create a nice full mood of snowy-winterness.

I think where this poem really shines in the word choice and imagery you've used!

This section in particular I thought was quite catching:

warmth abundant in an era of ice

and wind-stricken hills.

hens huddled in their coop,

patiently awaiting the sun-

^ You do a good job setting up in these lines a subtle conflict between the cold of winter and the need for warmth, and then you continue this motif through the whole poem! I'm generally of the opinion that good poetry like a good novel does need reason to care about the speaker -> and establishing conflict is always a good way to do that, it makes the reader care about the stakes of the poem, and connect more to what's being described. So well done there!

Clarity
One area where the poem could have a little bit of improvement would be clarity of narrative - there were two areas I was confused on. 1) In the first half it wasn't clear if the "her" who was being described was the care-taker of the hens or the hens themselves. And throughout the poem I similarly got confused a few times on who was being described - > in some way this created an interesting effect of showing the emotional / imagery similarities between humans and hens, but I couldn't quite tell if you were being purposely unclear on whether the subject was a person or hen, or if it was unintentional -> so I think you should try to go one way or the other with that a bit more decidedly.

Another area that I felt the poem was a bit vague were these two lines;

whisked away to a time not unlike the future
and the past.

^ There's not really a context that is given here for what "a time" would be referring to, except that perhaps it was summer? It's also not clear how it is "not unlike the future / past" - so I had a hard time with those two lines as they felt a bit more philosophical but not rooted into any of the imagery already being used. In addition I thought the line was a bit unbalanced with "and the past" being a bit too short for a line on it's own.

Form
I feel like this poem seemed like it could be divided pretty cleanly into three moments? After each point of end punctuation would be a natural space for a stanza break, and could help a little in making the reader slow down and take in what's being described.

I take zero issue with the lowercase capitalization, but just in case someone complains with it, I think it fits this poem because if it's from the perspective of the chicken -> why would a chicken know or care about grammatical conventions like capitalization, and if it's from the perspective of the caretaker clearly they are described as very soft in their delicate caring of these animals - so I think that the lowercased letters create a less abrasive effect in reading -> more like a lullaby than a rock-concert; more like a delicate letter than an essay, so I think fits the mood better than using capital letters. No problems with punctuation - it seemed clear, consistent, and useful.

Meaning
Okay now to the fun part.

Big critique -> don't tell the reader what the poem is about in the author's note haha unless it's some caution of a severe misinterpretation I think that telling the reader what the poem means limits reader engagement because they don't try to figure it out themselves - almost like if you were watching a movie and the director kept pausing the film to tell you about why they made certain lighting choices within a scene -> sometimes it's good to preserve some of the ~magic~ Also! I think telling people what the poem means before they have a chance to read it (except in cases where it's been misinterpreted) sometimes can sell the poem short by assuming that the content you've written doesn't portray what you intended it to. (similar to an artist painting a person and then saying, "in case you couldn't tell this is supposed to be a human") Don't sell your writing short!

In this case if you wanted to highlight the sentimental connection to your sister perhaps a dedication would work? Like "dedicated to my sister who loves her pet chickens very much and snuggles them regularly".

^ that's all more of a personal preference though, but I thought I'd share my perspective!

So anyways on to my interpretation!
I think I'd interpret this poem to be on a reflection on love (in particular maternal love) that goes beyond the forces of nature. The female pronouns were really highlighted in this piece -> especially with that first line beginning and ending with "her" and even the very last line ending in "(h)er". A "hen" is a classic symbol of motherhood as they very intimately care for their young by letting them nest within the warmth of their body heat. In that way I also interpreted heat/warmth/summer in this poem to be a symbol for life -> because for chickens the light/heat-source is very much tied to life, which means also the winter could be interpreted as death.

Might be a little bleak, but I couldn't tell in the opening lines (and then also in that line about fighting to keep eyes open) if the chicken being held was dead or alive - > I think this poem is a reflection on how love, especially from and to maternal sources can even overcome the bounds of summer/winter ie. life/death. I think the title may also support this life/death interpretation as "winged embrace" could mean a hug from a chicken (how often do chickens hug?) or from an angel.

The poem is surprisingly poignant for the topic, but maybe more-so because it's unexpected in a poem about chickens.

Thank you again for sharing! And keep poeting! <3

~ alliyah

Happy RevMo