Young Writers Society

Wow. I found this in a goofy thread.. I didn’t expect it to be beautiful loll

Hey whatcha! I'm making my way through the chicken poetry, so here I am! : ) Thank you so much for participating in the little challenge ~ I am very appreciative, and was hoping you'd write one given your chicken expertise!!

So let's get to the review:

Imagery / Continuity / Meaning

I think a real strength of this poem, is that imagery is compact and just so gosh-darn-cute. :] Anyone who has held a little tiny baby chicken I think can relate to the image you're describing of just basking in the adorableness of the small tiny yellow being.

That being said, I feel like the way you got to your second image of "daffodil feathers can become autumn leaves" quite worked.

In my first two read throughs I interpreted the poem to be saying, "wow this chicken is cute and yellow, with this chicken in my hands I can't understand how daffodil pedals one day die and their colors change, and I just refuse to believe that one day this chicken will grow up" - so in that interpretation the poem was very much about the unbelieavability of the passing of time, with the growth of chickens becoming a symbol for all time passing from life to death. My complaint there would be the imagery logic of daffodils turning into autumn leaves doesn't work because that's not how flowers work.

Then I realized, when you said "daffodil feathers" you were describing the chicken's feathers - and the description was more about colors changing than growing up with the emphasis being "hey this chicken is yellow, i can't believe one day this chicken will have different colors, and i refuse to believe one day it will be a supernova" -> in that sense I get how the daffodil / autumn leaves work, but I'm not quite understanding their link back to the sun / supernova, unless there you're literally talking about the sun itself rather than the chicken.

The imagery is really cute to think about the chicken as a sun, and as this little yellow thing that a person holds, like unbelievably cute. And I think there's a lot of voice that comes across in just the title - it feels like that same tone that people gush about babies and puppies with.

However, I think in the meaning & imagery-continuity department there's some aspects that don't quite follow-through all the way.

Suggestions
I think the main problem between those three pieces of imagery is I don't get how they are all relating to each other. <This is really a picky complaint, and by no means did I dislike the poem, I'm just bringing this up as a possible point to consider developing>

The first two are about color, then the last one is about growth? Or is autumn supposed to be a symbol for time passing here, so the last two are about growth?

I have a few suggestions to maybe help fill in the gaps between those images!

1) You could add some sun / celestial / star imagery to the beginning description of the chicken - (soft like star dust?, describing it's warmth?, fleeting like daylight?) something sunny or spacey would help link in that last image.

or

2) maybe dandelion feathers rather than daffodil? There's something about the image of a daffodil that for me just was hard to make the logical jump from "daffodil pedals" are like "chicken feathers" because daffodil pedals are so large, and chickens aren't even quite their color.

or

3) could you add a bit on how the supernova metaphor corresponds to the color changing one? If it's about the passage of time, I think there might be a way to allude to that even more, but yeah mostly I just want to see the internal workings of that metaphor stated out a bit more to give the reader enough nuggets to make those connections.

Punctuation
I liked the choice to lowercase letters of "i" and "autumn" as this made the whole thing feel a bit more close-quarters rather than a formal address, and made the piece cuter I think.

I tripped up a bit by the lack of commas between brown, red, orange -> but it caused me to read the line twice and contemplate whether the colors were being used as almost like a hyphenated color noun rather than three adjectives. So I actually liked the lack of commas there, because poetically they're unneeded, everyone gets what's being said, and it might make someone take a second look at what you're doing with colors.

One thing I debated myself a bit on is if you intended the title to be read as like an extension of the poem so the first line would read "i refuse to believe in chickens with a bright chick of yellow cupped in my palms" or if it was supposed to be read as a summation of the poem with the first line just starting on it's own. (I'd definitely be curious to hear your intentions on that, and any reflections you had on the poem's meaning too if you're willing to share!)

Overall this was a very lovely piece, I wanted to read more of it by the time I got to the end. And it left me wanting to go seek out some baby chickens to hold.


Thanks for sharing,

alliyah

Heya whatcha,

I thought I'd return the favor of your Checklist Challenge reviews on my poem, by choosing your chicken poem out of the multitude that's flooded the site to review for my Checklist Challenge xD Let's get started...

I really like the overall imagery that you have in this poem! I like how you use colors, in particular, as a central theme that you then connect to other things -- the juxtaposition of chickens with the items you compare it to is really nicely well done!

i can't imagine how daffodil feathers
can become autumn leaves

will one day burst into a supernova.

Hi whatchamacallit! I'm here to review your chicken-themed poem. It's a short one, so something tells me this review will probably be pretty short, too.

I love all of the dark themes that have surfaced in the other YWS chicken poems, but this poem really stole my heart with its much lighter imagery. Your fascination with how chicks grow up into chickens is something I've definitely felt before - especially as our own chicks have gone from being little fluff balls to miniature versions of their parents.

Calling chicks daffodils is downright adorable, and the idea of feathers changing colors like leaves do in the fall isn't something I haven't seen before. I think it's the perfect way to show the transition from infancy to adulthood. <3

I also really love how the space imagery you incorporated. It's not entirely consistent with the nature imagery, but it makes your take on chicks much more complete. While the daffodils-to-leaves comparison made me go "awww", the sun to supernova metaphor made me feel a strange sense of pride.

Overall, I really love this poem! It's one of my favorite chicken poems on YWS right now.

Hi there whatcha! I may or may not be here to cross the chicken challenge off my RevMo checklist challenge. Either way, I'm going to do my best to give you some worthwhile feedback, so let's jump into it!

I enjoyed the way that you incorporated many different colors into this poem, as well as the way you used the progression of the life cycle of a chicken to give your poem strong direction. I've always really admired your use of colors as descriptors, the strong plot arcs in your poetry, and the excellently-used nature metaphors, and this poem was no exception! Moving forward to some areas for improvement:

Your first line, "bright chick of yellow", seemed to be an unnecessarily roundabout way of describing a baby chick. The "of yellow" gave me pause and I had to read it twice to make sure that I had read it correctly. It wasn't the most direct way to phrase that, and rather than lending emphasis to the descriptor "yellow", it caused me some confusion. "bright yellow chick" paints an image with the same vividness to me and is a more direct and effective means of communicating that idea.

While I understand punctuation is a stylistic choice, I felt that there were two places where your punctuation choices were inconsistent. You use a comma in your second line, which to me indicates that you intend to use punctuation to help flow by separating ideas in what is generally considered the "correct" way to punctuate. However, there is no comma at the end of the fifth line at another transition spot. In my opinion, these commas would serve the same point of separating ideas and giving the reader slight pause in the poem. Secondly, adding commas after "brown" and "red" would separate these descriptors and in doing so lend more emphasis to each descriptor. I'm operating under the assumption that you were listing three separate colors (brown, red, and orange) and not two (brown red and orange), so if I'm mistaken in that please disregard this second point.

And to end this review on a positive note, I could gush about your ending for paragraphs on paragraphs. The way you tease at the idea of outer space being introduced by describing the chicken as a sun and then end with a bang by using a powerful word like "supernova" is *chef's kiss*. It's such a bright and vivid idea of the growth and cycle of life, and I really, really love it.

Overall, this was a really brilliant poem that seemed very consistent with your poetic style, and that enough is reason for this to be beautiful. You achieved a remarkable progression in a few short lines, and your ending was absolutely amazing. This is certainly a poem to be proud of! I hope some of my thoughts were helpful to you, and if you have any questions please feel free to reach out!

Best,
Tuck

Hello there fellow writer. I am here to say that ur poem is soooo satisfying to read. The amount of images it produces in my brain is simply outstanding. When reading poetry I love thinking about each line separately, and it's a delight to do it here.

First of all, this gorgeous metaphor "with a bright chick of yellow/cupped in my palms" there is soo much room for one to think about each meaning of it. Reading it the first time I imagined a little baby chicken slowly moving in a person's hands. That was further supported by the next line that says "daffodil feathers". However, when i re-read this poem a new idea came into my mind. What if this "bright chick of yellow" wasn't a little chicken but some water cupped in a little kid's hands and the bright sun is reflected in it so that it creates a bright but gentle light.

The image of autumn is still persistent in my mind and it was ignited even more by those colors so simply said but so meaningful. Red and orange gave me a feeling soo nice, i can say that it's kind of how one feels when laying in the chilly grass in the evening, after a hot day. Brown gave a more mature feel to everything that happens.

Lastly, the last 2 lines ended the journey through colors and sensations in a impressive manner. The "fluffy little sun" made me feel really comfortable, however the grandness of a supernova resetted this feeling of being comfortable with one that shocked me but in a good way.

Great poem, LOVED the metaphors!

Wow, I really, really, really love this!!

i can't imagine how daffodil feathers
can become autumn leaves

and i refuse to believe this fluffy little sun
will one day burst into a supernova.