One Slow Swing

                one slow swing—

                the echo of the axe

                in the chicken coop

I wonder how many of the readers have actually killed a chicken, or a turkey? This was something that was common during the 1930s, and perhaps still is in a rural setting. When I was considered old enough, my father gave me instruction on the method of killing a turkey for Thanksgiving, and for me the actual killing of the turkey was a rite of passage. There was, is, a whole folklore about slaughter which was common, and now is suppressed. All the mortal work is done away from the home. Consider: baby’s born, slaughter of animals, illness, death, etc. All are evacuated from the home. Today we have specialized institutions for these things. It used to be that one would have to remove the feathers from the dead bird as well. If you’ve done it, you know what I mean. Do I need to say why I chose this haiku for comment? May I suggest, go find the nearest chicken coop.

—Jerry Ball

The odd reality of what we are is in this haiku—we kill to eat. There is powerful material to be examined here. However, it seems to me that the writer turns away, avoiding the central act. The first line occurs before the deed and the last two lines afterwards. The deed itself, the actual fall of the axe, is missing.

     Forgive me for being picky about this, but the haiku is addressing an important concept, and I would like it to work successfully. As the reader I need to know for sure where I am relative to the scene. But I am not sure if the killing is taking place in the barnyard or in the chicken coop. And I don’t know if I am watching/listening from the barnyard or the chicken coop. With the first line, “one slow swing,” I am asked to see the event directly. But the last two lines suggest that I can only hear “the echo” of the axe. If I am close enough to see the swing of the axe, why would I not be close enough to see and hear the thud that severs the head, the flapping wings of the now headless bird, and the cackles of alarm in the rest of the chicken flock? In writing haiku we often choose one detail in a chaotic scene to bring back the entire memory. However, the echo of the axe is not the detail that best evokes this scene for me. If the right detail were chosen, then it would give me the opening I need to go deeper into the central issue of the haiku, which is killing to eat.

—Patricia J. Machmiller

My Response

Do I turn away, avoiding the central act? Yes and no. The axe swing itself is directly mentioned, but the moment of killing is not. The landing of that swing, the moment of death, comes to readers as an echo only, so is the central act therefore avoided? I would say no. By understatement I hope to imply the reality more strongly, giving the reader a dynamic point of engagement. The reader fills in the vital missing piece. Patricia correctly points out that the first line is before the death, the last two lines after, but this is exactly the intention, of deliberately leaving out the most important part of the experience. I often say in my haiku workshops that the most important detail sometimes needs to be omitted so it can be implied. This is not a turning away but an emphatic emphasis of the moment’s central point—or act, in this case. In addition, the killing is clearly taking place in the chicken coop because the poem says so. I leave that to the last line so the death of a bird comes as more of a surprise. It’s a deliberate withholding that yields to revelation, which I would say strengthens the poem.

Where the listener is might possibly seem to be beside the point, but to me that too is clear from a careful reading. There’s no accounting for taste, or in this case Patricia’s preference to serve up the horrific moment of killing on this haiku’s plate rather than leaving it deftly implied—but the implication is achieved through sound. We may wonder if the emphasis on sound might suggest that the observer does not see this and is therefore outside the chicken coop (where one could presumably also hear the swing of the axe). Could this therefore be a child that is not yet ready to see the act of slaughter, let alone ready to be responsible for the slaughter itself? But the poem is more precise than this. It says the echo is in the chicken coop, not coming from it. “From” would imply that the person who hears this is outside the coop, but this sound being “in the chicken coop” makes it clear that the observer is also in the coop, and did see the moment of death. It’s a chilling moment—and the echo deepens the chill. Nevertheless, we all write of particular moments in ways peculiar to our preferences and perceptions. My approach doesn’t have to match another person’s—or vice versa—but I stand by this poem as written and continue to value its choice to embrace understatement. Indeed, in haiku, misdirection can be a powerful tool.

And should I also mention that I’m . . . vegetarian?

—18 June 2025