Poultry Poetry

***UPDATE***
I was not chosen as winner of the prize. While it’s purported to have been done by random draw, I think it’s safe to say my poultry poetry blew everyone else’s out of the water. Even on the frontiers of chicken, there is no justice.
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A close, personal friend of mine – who’s huge in Japan, but chooses instead to live out his days in Toronto, breeding naked mole rats and writing about it on his blog Hammer and Popsicle – sent me a link the other day.

 When I first clicked on it, I read it over quickly and thought to myself: “Wow! This is pretty dumb.” But after having considered it for a few moments longer, it occurred to me that it’s actually quite clever.

 Tasting Toronto, a local foodie blog, is giving away a Cuisinart® Griddler®. The appliance is a prize the blog itself won for submitting an award-winning chicken recipe to a contest put on by the Chicken Farmers of Canada, who run the chicken racket in this country.

 Rather than ask for traditional entries into a contest however, Tasting Toronto takes a different approach, asking readers to channel their inner Monty Python by marrying classical sensibilities with modern-day silliness.

 Asking their readers to submit poems based on their love of poultry, Tasting Toronto has one-upped the Chicken Farmers in the contest department. A food organization asking for recipes? Old news. And you know what? Old news is not news.

 A food organization asking for odes and ballads deifying their product? That’s already more interesting, if for no other reason than the concept. Add to that the fact that chicken somehow seems inherently silly, and this contest just got interesting.

 I wish the Chicken Farmers had thought of something this clever. It’s a great idea and one that can be re-used and re-purposed for many organizations. By inviting creativity, followers of the product are encouraged to express their feelings for said product any way they’d like. Often, this results in passionate outbursts of adoration as people are thrilled to let a company know just how much they love (or not) a product.

 That said, I heart chicken. They say pork is the other white meat? My friend, there is no other white meat. Only chicken. Here’s my entry in the poultry poetry sweepstakes. If you like it, please let me and/or Tasting Toronto know.

 I walked up to my ho and asked: “Yo, how’s trickin’?”
She looked at me and said: “Makin money thanks to chicken!”

“Thanks to chicken?” I asked, acting all surprised.
“Hells yeah bitch, that shit’s keeping me alive!
“It’s chock-full of protein and keeps me going,
“It’s got the energy I need to keep on blowin’!”

“What about your clients when they smell it on your breath?”
“I tell ‘em for the price of two, they’re getting four breasts!
“Two of them are female, and two of them are fowl,
“They get excited and get messy, so I throw them a towel.”

 “Damn,” I exclaimed, “I can’t hardly believe it!
“From now on chicken’s what all my ho’s be eatin’!”

 The moral of the story, for those that don’t know,
If you want to make money, get some poultry for your ho.