Leovinus
Also one of my favourites of yours, Our Ken.

Nice hat :-)
2016-12-04

Jamsbo Rockda
Oh your work is much better Ken. It tells the story from a different direction which personalizes it. Very well done. Had I known that it was already done so well I would not have posted mine :)
2015-04-19

night soul woman
This one is among your best ones! That's what I felt, that's my reading experience. Thank you for sharing! Really:) *applause*
2014-01-31

Jeffrey Z Rothstein
Excellent read about a tragic ecological episode. You make the charade of displaying the last Passenger Pigeon in the Cincinnati Zoo too personal to ignore. This is often just what happens when a species is destroyed; those remaining are fetishized, as if preserving their remains, after they expire, is somehow the same as if the creature were allowed to thrive without such senseless intrusions. (We seem to do something similar with vanishing groups of humans as well--I think of those Remington paintings at the end of the Nineteenth century, that were so polura after the harsh overrunning of so many indigenous peoples and cultures; and I often wonder what that says about Western culture)

Of course, I am mindful of the desire to retain a gene pool where rare species are concerned. But, it occurs to me that I am rendering the whole episode in such oobjectifying terms that it is reduced to an issue of quantifiable measurements and other artifacts of human reasoning. You said it much better, and with a compassion that is often lacking in historical recountings.
2014-01-27

Editorial Team
This text has been chosen to be featured on the home page of PoetBay. Thank you for posting it on our poetry website.
2014-01-20

Elle
Excellent Ken, a tragedy of mankind sadly

Elle x
2014-01-05

The read was sad and tragic. I read about Martha and it is such a shame. Species are disappearing everyday because of our neglect and cruelty.
Ashe
2014-01-05

I just read an article yesterday about Martha. It's tragic, like the extermination of the American bison (buffalo). I'm sure it seemed impossible at the time that BILLIONS could be wiped out.

What an interesting poem, Ken, totally unique, and a history lesson as well. Well done and thank you.

Coincidentally, I saw a flock of blackbirds a few days ago, the largest I've ever seen, a cloud about a half a mile long and a hundred yards wide, flying over head. I've never seen anything like. It's lucky for them no one wants to eat them.
2014-01-04

Lawrence Beck
Nicely put, Ken. It's a sad story.
2014-01-04

countryfog
"One flock in 1866 in southern Ontario was described as being 1 mi (1.5 km) wide and 300 mi (500 km) long, took 14 hours to pass, and held in excess of 3.5 billion birds. That number, if accurate, would likely represent a large fraction of the entire population at the time."

I hadn't known about Martha . . . in a way it's even sadder having a name and a story to put to the last of her kind.
2014-01-04