Poultry Poetry

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Count your many blessings...
11 Years
Mar 12, 2008
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Loxahatchee, Florida
Recently I found a great book of animal poetry at the library. It was one I remember reading in junior high school when we were doing our poetry unit and each student had to compile their own anthology of favorite poems. It's titled The Birds and the Beasts Were There edited by William Cole. I'm going to copy some of the ones about poultry here, please feel free to add more -- especially your original creations!
 
Fingers in the Nesting Box by Robert Graves

My heart would be faithless
If ever I forgot
My farmhouse adventure
One day by the fowl run
When Phoebe (of the fringe
And the fairy-story face)
Incited me to forage
Under speckled feathers
For the first time.

Fabulous I thought it,
Fabulous and fateful
(Before familiarity
With the fond pastime
My feelings blunted),
To clasp in frightened fingers
A firm, warm, round...
"Phoebe, dear Phoebe,
What have I found?"
 
from Ducks by F.W. Harvey

When God had finished the stars and whirl of colored suns
He turned His mind from big things to fashion little ones,
Beautiful tiny things (like daisies) He made, and then
He made the comical ones in case the minds of men
Should stiffen and become
Dull, humorless and glum:
And so forgetful of their Maker be
As to take even themselves --quite seriously.
Caterpillars and cats are lively excellent puns:
All God's jokes are good--even the practical ones!

And as for the duck, I think God must have smiled a bit
Seeing those bright eyes blink on the day He fashioned it.
And He's probably laughing still at the sound that came out of its bill!
 
A Blue Ribbon at Amesbury by Robert Frost

Such a fine pullet ought to go
All coiffured to a winter show
And be exhibited, and win
The answer to this one has been--

And come with all her honors home,
Her golden leg, her coral comb,
Her fluff of plumage, white as chalk,
Her style, were all the fancy's talk.

It seems as if you must have heard,
She scored an almost perfect bird,
In her we make ourselves acquainted,
With one a Sewell might have painted.

Here common with the flock again,
At home in her abiding pen,
She lingers feeding at the trough,
The last to let night drive her off.

The one who gave her ankle-band,
Her keeper, empty pail in hand,
He lingers too, averse to slight,
His chores for all the wintry night.

He leans against the dusty wall,
Immured almost beyond recall,
A depth past many swinging doors,
And many litter-muffled floors.

He meditates the breeders art.
He has half a mind to start,
With her for Mother Eve, a race
That shall all living things displace.

'Tis ritual for her to lay
The full six days, then rest a day;
At which rate barring broodiness,
She may well score an egg success.

The gatherer can always tell
Her well-turned egg's brown shapely shell,
As safe a vehicle of seed
As is vouchsafed to feathered breed.

No human specter at the feast
Can scant or hurry her the least.
She takes her time to take her fill,
She whets a sleepy sated bill.

She gropes across the pen alone,
To peck herself a precious stone.
She waters at the patent fount
And so to roost, the last to mount.

The roost is her extent of flight,
Yet once she rises to the height,
She shoulders with a wing so strong,
She makes the whole flock move along.

The night is setting in to blow,
It scours the windowpane with snow,
But barely gets from them or her,
For comment a complacent chirr.

The lowly pen is yet a hold,
Against the dark and wind and cold
To give a prospect to a plan,
And warrant prudence in a man.












smile.png
I love this poem...
big_smile.png
 
Thanks for sharing that poem by good ol' Robert Frost. You can tell from the poem that he must have been a poultryman. I just did a quick bit of online research & found out that he was. Check out http://RobertFrostFarm.org/historyproperty.html to read about, among other things, his "flock of nearly 300 Wyandotte fowls."

There is also a book titled Robert Frost: Farm-Poultryman which has 11 stories published during his years as a chicken farmer, originally published in New England poultry journals in 1903-1905.
 
A Blue Ribbon at Amesbury by Robert Frost

Such a fine pullet ought to go
All coiffured to a winter show
And be exhibited, and win
The answer to this one has been--

And come with all her honors home,
Her golden leg, her coral comb,
Her fluff of plumage, white as chalk,
Her style, were all the fancy's talk.

It seems as if you must have heard,
She scored an almost perfect bird,
In her we make ourselves acquainted,
With one a Sewell might have painted.

Here common with the flock again,
At home in her abiding pen,
She lingers feeding at the trough,
The last to let night drive her off.

The one who gave her ankle-band,
Her keeper, empty pail in hand,
He lingers too, averse to slight,
His chores for all the wintry night.

He leans against the dusty wall,
Immured almost beyond recall,
A depth past many swinging doors,
And many litter-muffled floors.

He meditates the breeders art.
He has half a mind to start,
With her for Mother Eve, a race
That shall all living things displace.

'Tis ritual for her to lay
The full six days, then rest a day;
At which rate barring broodiness,
She may well score an egg success.

The gatherer can always tell
Her well-turned egg's brown shapely shell,
As safe a vehicle of seed
As is vouchsafed to feathered breed.

No human specter at the feast
Can scant or hurry her the least.
She takes her time to take her fill,
She whets a sleepy sated bill.

She gropes across the pen alone,
To peck herself a precious stone.
She waters at the patent fount
And so to roost, the last to mount.

The roost is her extent of flight,
Yet once she rises to the height,
She shoulders with a wing so strong,
She makes the whole flock move along.

The night is setting in to blow,
It scours the windowpane with snow,
But barely gets from them or her,
For comment a complacent chirr.

The lowly pen is yet a hold,
Against the dark and wind and cold
To give a prospect to a plan,
And warrant prudence in a man.












smile.png
I love this poem...
big_smile.png

I came across this poem in a chicken history book and I was going to post it on this site, but I thought I'd do a search for it first and here it is! My first thought is that Robert Frost must know something about chickens based on the poem. It's funny the little things you learn when you start keeping chickens that non-chicken people wouldn't know (I never used to know!). Very cool that Robert Frost captured "chicken-ness" so well in this poem.
 

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