Young Writers Society

This is very interesting, and the way that you made a poem about a chicken so meaningful and important is very honorable. I like the style of the poem, with no capitalization. The last two lines are my favorite,

they don't know to be afraid. and perhaps that in itself is the greatest mercy.

I think some of the reviewers took this poem a bit more darkly, but as I said on your wall I definitely read this poem through the lens of Matthew 6 in which I think Jesus is trying to give comfort by comparing our anxiety to that of birds, and then God's great love for us too.

The poem is certainly not as hopeful as the biblical passage as it doesn't move to hope at the end, but it's alright for a poem to linger in the anxiety a bit too! You might find it interesting to reflect on the theme in light of the rest of the passage trying to work chickens into the rest. One of my favorite verses from that chapter is "don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today" and I think that would be so interesting to place in conversation with the chicken setting.

I think you did a great job choosing a few concrete physical and mental manifestations of anxiety - the lack of breath, the cycling around of the thought on the future. I think there's a whole host of things one could choose to describe anxiety but you've chosen just a couple that really highlight it well keeping the poem succinct but powerful.

I think the poem feels largely unresolved at the end because the speaker seems to acknowledge that maybe what the chickens are doing is good in itself, they are experiencing a mercy, and yet there isn't quite a sense that this lessens their own anxiety.

Overall I thought the form, punctuation, and capitalization all made sense and didn't detract from my reading at all. The lines were a bit uneven but I think for a poem about worry it's fine for the flow to be a bit stilted, and there's no need for it to be formulaic.

The light repetition between the lines, "they don't know enough / they don't know to be afraid" is well done as it builds the drama a bit, almost like the speaker is realizing what they're thinking as they're saying it by adding more to the statement the second time around.

My only wording critique (besides wanting to read more of the poem!) was that I'm not feeling like "mesh" is quite the right word in that fourth stanza. I'm also wondering if you could bring up some ideas of what chickens could be worried about but actually aren't to sort of draw out the comparison a bit more. I think the implied worry that some of the other readers jumped on was the worry about being eaten; but you could choose lighter things too -> like a chicken doesn't worry if their feathers are unkempt, or their screech rings too loud, or the sun will rise, or their food arrive. etc.

Overall, it was a thoughtful and succinct poem that I enjoyed reflecting on! Thank you for sharing it and also for participating in the chicken prompt.

Happy writing,

~alliyah

Hello Lael, I see you've caught the chicken fever, so let's get started!

This is a short, sad little poem. It made me think of the cruelty they face, so thank you for making me cry. But, I do like the question at the beginning. It helps the reader understand there is a bigger picture.

do chickens worry about tomorrow
or do they feel their heartbeats quicken,"

do chicken worry about tomorrow?

or...

do chickens worry about tomorrow,
or do they feel their heartbeats quicken?

I would delete "that" and make the next three lines a sentence, getting rid of the question mark.

it's hard to breathe
when facing the mesh
of thoughts of their impending future.

Hi Lael!

I really enjoyed reading your poem! It is short and sweet, eh, not so sweet when thinking of impending doom, huh? It is interesting to think of animals having worries, at least the kind of human worries that we have. Not just instinctual worries or actions, but well thought out ones. I love the fact that you mentioned that the greatest mercy is that they do not know enough. We all know the saying "ignorance is bliss", and I think that to be very true. It is easier to not worry, to not know, to not have to think or struggle, but feelings are an adventure, and we must feel all that we do. Great job and keep writing!

Hello there. I love that the chicken poem trend has caught on, and I am very happy to review this one. This might be on the shorter side of reviews though, as this poem itself is only one stanza, but let's see how this goes.

Rhetorical questions can be a fun way to start a poem, regardless of its contents, but starting this one wondering about chickens helps the reader to 1) understand that chickens will be the main subject manner and 2) understand that there will be some deep thinking going on (for lack of a better term). However, I'm actually a bit confused as to when the question is supposed to end judging from the punctuation or lack of punctuation.

I myself thought that the opening line was a complete thought, as in "do chickens worry about tomorrow" as there is not a comma at the end of tomorrow. However, I think it actually ends at future, which throws me off a bit as the second line does have a comma to connect "heartbeats quicken" with "breathe/mesh" before going into the end of the question. For future reference, I would recommend putting some kind of punctuation at the end of tomorrow so that every line of this poem is more connected, if my thinking is correct.

Continuing on from there, I do like this opening line. I think bringing up an idea about an animal, and what its capabilities are/what do they feel/what can they think in their own lives is a curious exercise when inevitably comparing them to how humans communicate. Actually, an interesting idea could be to add "can" at the beginning of line two "can they feel ..." as another way to picture what chickens do, but maybe that's a bit weird so ignore that.

I actually would say to delete "that" in the third line and replace it with "when" so that it reads "when it's hard to breathe/facing the mesh." If the difference in line length is unappealing, I would even take it a step further and place "quicken" to start the third line, thus switching over "quicken when it's hard to/breathe facing the mesh." If that's too weird to convey in text form, I'll put what I'm envisioning in a quote/spoiler at the end of this review.

The "of thoughts of" is a bit redundant as well, and I would recommend trying to reword that in a way, perhaps "mesh of thoughts hinting of their impending future?" Hmm. Not a great example, but I hope that gets some gears spinning.

I like the comparison of all-together too familiar idea of losing breath/being stuck in a cycle of worrying for what the future brings, which in this case, is, I imagine, a chicken thinking about what comes next, while we as humans know they will eventually end as a meal on a table. That image is especially a bit gruesome when it comes to the second half of this poem, thinking about the fact that chickens don't know what to expect.

As per a way to go over punctuation, which is nit-picky, but I'm a bit intrigued, I would put a period or semi-colon after "enough" instead of a comma, and then I would put a comma after "afraid" to keep part of the pattern going. The very last line gives a bittersweet tone, to perhaps instill a wish that people can feel some kind of emotion to chickens and animals of all kinds.

I might have gone too into a poem about chickens, but I wanted to give it a whirl :p I definitely liked the content, I mostly just want to format this a bit differently as I think the length/choice of words worked very well. I really liked this and I hope my thoughts made sense! Below is an idea of how I'd change things up a bit.

first line: "tomorrow?" or "tomorrow,"
second line: "... heartbeats" [quicken]
third line: "when that ..." [breathe]
fourth line: "breathe ... mesh" [of]
fifth line: "thoughts of [hinting at] "future?"
sixth line: "enough." or "enough:
seventh line: "afraid,"
eighth line: same
ninth line: same