Andrea Cohen: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

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Fable

 

I’m tired of meaning, says the tortoise

to the hare, who agrees. The lions

 

and crows don’t disagree, and the snake

chimes in: it would be better if we didn’t

 

have to moonlight as morality lessons.

Exactly, says the chicken. I’d like to let

 

loose once in a while, I’d like to

stretch my wings, she says. Yes,

 

says the fox. You should get out

of your pen more, says the fox. You

 

should let me help, says the fox,

opening the latch to the evening.

 

It was a fine evening and a fine

conclusion they were coming to,

 

thought the fox, helping the

chicken out of her feathers.

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Andrea Cohen is the author of eight books of poetry, including, most recently, The Sorrow Apartments, Everything, and Nightshade.  Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Threepenny Review, The New York Review of Books, Poetry, and elsewhere. She directs the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge, MA.

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                                            Aesop, Johann Michael Wittmer (1802–1880), oil on canvas

 

 

Comments

[Thomas O'Grady]

This fable . . . “fabulous”!

[Geoffrey Himes]

Yes, it's easier to abandon meaning if you're a fox than if you're a chicken. Nice bait and switch here.

[Grace Cavalieri]

Delightful= MIRTH AND MEANING. NO better combination.

[Denise Duhamel]

Brilliant! I love this faux-fable that folds into itself!!
Andrea Cohen poems never disappoint.

[David Lehman]

"It would be better if we didn’t / have to moonlight as morality lessons." Fabulous -- as is the accompanying painting.

[Nin Andrews]

Brilliant!!!

[Robert Pinsky]

So good, with Andrea's mastery of moving in more directions than one.

[Eileen Reich]

Wonderful poem. Aesop has everyone’s attention in the painting

[Jane Shore]

I just love Andrea Cohen’s poems!

[Maureen Owen]

Ha! Love the twist!

[Abbie Mulvihill]

Wonderful poem!

[bill nevins]

brilliant twisty poem

[David Beaudouin]

Ah, be careful what you wish for! Love the reverse in this verse. Thanks, Terence!

[Terence Winch]

David----Thanks for the comment.

[Tom Mandel]

Oooh that foxy logic!
:)

[Cindy Hochman]

A great example of the foxes guarding the hen house in a delightfully told poem. Wonderful use of anthropomorphism and it flows down the page nicely in couplets. This makes me want to read more of your work, Andrea. Congrats!