When I was still an English teacher a few years ago I used to analyse an Edwin Brock poem with the Grade 9s. It is called The Song of the Battery Hen.
Take a look at the picture below (courtesy of farmsanctuary.org) and then read the poem. By purchasing eggs that are not free-range one is supporting this extreme form of factory farming. Some supermarkets in SA won’t even give one the option to buy free-range.
Song of the Battery Hen
We can’t grumble about accommodation;
We have a new concrete floor that’s
Always dry, four walls that are
Painted white, and a sheet-iron roof
The rain drums on. A fan blows warm air
Beneath our feet to disperse the smell
Of chickenshit and, on dull days,
Fluorescent lighting sees us.
You can tell me; if you come by
The North door, I am in the twelfth pen
On the left-hand side of the third row
From the floor; and in that pen
I am usually the middle one of the three.
But even without directions, you’d
Discover me. I have the same orange-
Red comb, yellow beak and auburn
Feathers, but as the door opens and you
Hear above the electric fan a kind of
One-word wail, I am the one
Who sounds loudest in my head.
Listen. Outside this house there’s an
Orchard with small moss-green apple
Trees; beyond that, two fields of
Cabbages then, on the far side of
The road, a broiler house. Listen:
One cockerel crows out of there, as
Tall and proud as the first hour of the sun.
Sometimes I stop calling with the others
To listen, and I wonder if he hears me.
The next time you come here, look for me.
Notice the way I sound inside my head.
God made us all quite differently,
And blessed us with this expensive home.
— Edwin Brock