Young Writers Society

Hey Star!

A chicken poem and a featured poem all in one go? That's two off my checklist - you're the best!

I really love your choice of language in this poem. There are many phrases that work super well for me as they heighten the absurdity of the entire thing. A particular favourite example of mine would be 'the heavens have never known the velvet touch of chickens'. Wonderful!

The last stanza doesn't flow quite as well for me. Maybe you could separate out 'hollow on the inside' and have it on its own? I'm not sure... It almost feels like you made the jump from comparing chickens/planes to being more meaningful a little too quickly and the reader gets lost along the way.

I also enjoyed the stark contrast between velvet chickens and mechanical planes. You've drawn comparisons to chickens and aeroplanes (a sentence I never thought I would need to type) but this imagery does a good job of showing them to be two clearly separate things.

Overall this was fun, so thanks for sharing! Happy RevMo <3

Icy

Hi Star! Thanks for writing a chicken poem!


Let's check it out!

Imagery / Word Choice
You've got excellent imagery and word choice all the way through -> I love how you've used a few words unexpectedly to really add some uniqueness to the piece and make the images more striking. For instance using "stitched" to describe how the feathers are attached to the wings, and "scratched" for how the plane goes across the sky.

You've created a bit of a cold contrast between the rough mechanical plane and the soft chicken too which is a nice compelling conflict centered around the question "what does it take to fly".

Meaning / Interpretation
I was totally following along with the poem for the first two stanzas -it's sad and odd that chickens can't fly longer, and the "why" is really strange like from either a creation or evolutionary perspective "why why why can't chickens be better at flying?" when it feels like they would be more fitting in the sky than airplanes. I also think everyone whose ever traveled by airplane has probably had the moment of, "how in the world does this giant heavy machine fly?" so it creates a moment of relation too. It's honestly mind-bending and you bring attention to that strangeness in an almost machine versus nature conflict.

However when I get to the last stanza I got a bit confused as to what you're describing in this line, "maybe you just need to be hollow on the inside" -> the problem is I think you're describing airplanes based on the title, but airplanes aren't really hollow since they hold people? in contrast chickens are actually kind of hollow in their bones? I'm just not sure this idea of hollowness has been explored enough for it to make sense -

also I wish the poem had made a turn to significance there; sometimes people describe being "emotionless" as feeling "hollow" and so if I interpret the poem as an expression of longing to be able to fly (with flight being perhaps a metaphor for purpose, freedom, or some sort of enlightenment), one could interpret the poem to mean -> maybe there's not a problem with my body / resources / mind that is limiting me from achieving flight / hope / enlightenment / purpose / freedom -> but the problem is actually with my emotions -> I care too much like a chicken, so can't achieve flight. That's kind of a bitter message! And even within that interpretation, it kind of bothers me that airplanes really aren't hollow unless they're empty, but can fly either way - I just feel some tension with that metaphor.

I think the poem could be made a little more significant I guess if you introduced an "I" voice in the end about the speaker's concern with flight; I'm not sure exactly what they might say; but I think you're hinting on the speaker being concerned about flight themselves, and that might be somewhere to turn especially because flight is a natural metaphor for many other things.

My other interpretation -> that would maybe be a bit stretch is there's a bit of religious imagery you're using in this poem that would lend itself to a religious interpretation. Of the created reality versus that natural reality (ie. planes vs chicken) which is sometimes a topic of religious conflict, you mention that chickens can't reach the "heavens", mention "weighted wings" which evokes for me someone weighted by sin / guilt, and then "hollow on the inside" could be a reflection on the soul. I don't really know if this works, but the poem could be a reflection of someone who is debating internally whether they're going to heaven or not or whether heaven exists, and they observe that it seems like for those who have souls (ie. those who aren't hollow: chickens & humans) we are always weighted by something (we are always burdened for sin) so we can't reach the heavens - the only way that something could reach enlightenment / heaven is if they were soul-less.

Genre / Form
I didn't find the poem particularly humorous, I think the title is kind of a snappy observation, and maybe the mental picture of a chicken turning into an airplane or vice versa is a bit funny to imagine, but the poem itself felt a bit more longing / sincere / observational than silly.

I agree with whatcha that you've done a nice job with sound devices all the way through - only line I felt didn't have good flow is "that scratch the sky's surface" for some reason I think it doesn't work because in the rest of the lines in that stanza you follow the pattern verb of noun, verb of object (ie. touch of chicken, coat of blue) and then you use the possessive sky -> breaking the pattern. And that line also has fewer syllables than the two on either side -> I'd change to "that scratch the surface of the sky" but I think others might argue that'd be too repetitive then! So do what you think you best, but I did feel that line tripped me up a bit; maybe the issue is actually that "sky's surface" is hard to say together with the repeated "s" sound without any space? Sometimes repeated consonant sounds without something different between become tongue twisters. Like "Cubed dumpster" or "pot turkey" (ha, I don't know what those were the words I thought of, but hopefully that makes sense!) Everything else seemed to have good flow and the punctuation and capitalization choices seemed consistent and effective too!

Thanks again for writing, I enjoyed reading this!

~ alliyah

Hi there Star! I swear I'm totally not here because I need to review a chicken poem for RevMo

Wow. I just need to say upfront, I love this poem, I can't even explain it. I'm not sure if you've tried reading it aloud, but I think if you do you'll find that it's really enjoyable to speak, which is for a combination of reasons ~ you use so many great alliterations, assonance, even a bit of accidental rhyming here and here, and the language reads like something that a narrator is speaking.

(Assonance, if you haven't heard of it, is like rhyming but just with vowels, not whole words. Some of my absolute favourite lines of the poem use it, like "wings and hollow bones to help" and "but the heavens have never known".)

There is so much alliteration in this short poem and I'm loving it. In the first two stanzas you've got "fluffy feathers", "wispy wings", "hollow bones to help", and "scratch the sky's surface", which are all great and beautiful, but what I personally feel really adds depth and meaning is when in the final stanza you take those alliterations and change them up a bit ~ "weighted wings" and "firm feathers". It's such a deliberate choice and incredibly effective!

Also, I know I've critiqued this in other reviews, so I want to point it out here - your choice of only using a period to end the final stanza and nowhere else is a really clean way to end the poem. The first two stanzas feel pretty light-ish so saving that period for the very end adds to the weight of the final stanza.

And the message and them of this poem, is, as always, very thought-provoking and original. I would've never thought of this if I was told to write a poem about chickens, but it works really well.

Before I end this review I'm just going to mention your imagery! I enjoy how the tone switches from softer when talking about chickens (words like "fluffy", "wispy", "brush", etc.) to more harsh ("mechanical", "scratch", "discolour", "crisp") when you talk about airplanes. and I SEE YOU sneaking in more sky imagery!

I honestly don't have any significant critiques for this poem. The only thing I noticed was the repetition of the word "wings" in the first stanza - it feels a bit unnecessary and I think you could probably alter the wording slightly to make it more succinct. But that's such a nitpick.

I hope despite lack of critiques this is still helpful or at very least encouraging (I guess I'm putting that workshop into practice!)

Keep writing and happy RevMo <3

whatcha