Chicken

Abstract

Chicken consists of a collection of 38 gay poems written and illustrated by Seattle poet Dennis Kelly. Several kinds of gay poems are introduced here, all centered on the theme of young gay love. The author has already published Gay Sunshine & Fag Rag, and is working on a long gay epic called Cantos Northwest, whose ten first poems can also be found in Chicken. Kelly's language is simple and spontaneous, full of slang and word-games [which can be found in "Graphemics", where the real chicken is "awakened by the difference between syntax and semen/antics".