A Poetry Friday for Farm Animals

I spent so much time working on my Poetry Friday post for Wild Rose Reader that I didn’t get around to looking for a poem to post at Blue Rose Girls today. I wrote a review of a special new children’s poetry book for my other blog. The book, written by Maya Gottfried, is titled Our Farm: By the Animals of Farm Sanctuary. Farm Sanctuary is a place that rescues neglected and abused farm animals. It is located in Watkins Glen, New York. Gottfried wrote the poems after volunteering at the Farm Sanctuary. The poems are told from the perspectives of different animals that actually live at the sanctuary—including Clarabell, a goat; J. D., a piglet; Miss Grandma Moo; and Hilda, a sheep. Hilda was the first animal rescued by Farm Sanctuary.

In her “Note for Grown-ups,” in the back matter of the book, Gottfried talks about the terrible conditions under which the majority of farm animals live out their lives. She writes: “They are usually housed in huge, crowded facilities where they are denied the wind, the sun, the green grass, and the warm dirt they love. Enter Farm Sanctuary. Founded in 1986, Farm Sanctuary provides shelter for neglected and abused farm animals.”

It is sad that sentient creatures are treated so horribly by our huge agribusiness industry. It’s one of the reasons I eat much less meat than I once did. I don’t eat veal any longer—and buy only free range chickens and eggs produced by chickens that aren’t caged animals. I hope I’ll have the strength of will to become a vegetarian one day.

Here’s one of the illustrations from Our Farm, which has exceptional artwork—done in watercolors, pencil, and ink—by Robert Rahway Zakanitch.

Here’s a video of some piglets playing at the Farm Sanctuary.


I’m sending all of you who are animal lovers over to my post today at Wild Rose Reader: Poetry Book Review & Videos: Our Farm by Maya Gottfried.

Julie Larios has the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Drift Record.