Welcome to the Chicago Poultry Center!
In the days of phone books and landlines, the Chicago Poetry Center used to get phone calls for “the Poultry Center.” The staff began to incorporate chickens into their designs, which included a Lawrence Ferlinghetti broadside with a chicken designed by Ed Paschke. When the organization rebranded in 2025, we wanted to add a visual mark and make a nod to this history.
Enter the urban pigeon!
Urban pigeons, also known as feral pigeons, are no longer domesticated poultry, but free and wild urban citizens, much like the rest of us Chicagoans. We’re celebrating our unfairly maligned avian neighbors and this organizational history with pigeon designs by Monica Jost of Nitewerk and a brief history of the pigeon in CPC poetry. Coo coo!
The Pigeons
Meet the new flock!
Watch
Learn about our poultry roots in this documentary, A Bigger Table: 50 Years of The Chicago Poetry Center.
I Find Myself Defending Pigeons by Keith Wilson
Student Poetry
Squirrels look for food to eat with their families.
Pigeons steel hotdogs like robbers at a bank.
Golde
You looked at yourself in the mirror
and you asked your self questions
I’ve been thinking about you
The girl in the mirror
This girl
So simple yet so complicated
Her mind is clear, then flooded with
Hundreds of thoughts
Her body is perfect but she treats it like
a book’s cover
She judges it.
She tells herself that she’s like a
Penny
worthless.
She acts like she’s a pigeon surrounded
by peacocks
Like a sunflower surrounded by roses
The odd one out
Even if her friends tell her that she’s as perfect
as a rose
She only shakes her head
Over the years, this rose… slowly withered, her sorrow
became clearer
So please help save
the girl in the mirror
Squirrels look for food to eat with their families.
Pigeons steel hotdogs like robbers at a bank.
Golden retrievers and huskies walk tall and proud.
Pieces of grass and vines sneak onto buildings like a
ninja stealing a diamond.
Me? I’m just looking at the town, an angel under an
apple tree on a hill. Wondering dang why is downtown
so fun and I’m sitting here? COME ON!
I am breaking the 4th wall
I wonder if pigeons are government spies
I hear the wind blowing
I see trees of green
I want to know the meaning of life
I am breaking the 4th wall
I pretend I am a superhero
I feel my snoopy plushie
I touch my pencil while writing this
I worry if I will ever get student of the month
I cry when I am sad
I am breaking the 4th wall
I understand math
I dream I am the best
I try to always be happy
I hope to finish this on time
I am breaking the 4th wall
Support local pigeons!
Check out the Chicago Pigeon Rescue. Found an injured bird in Chicago? Call the Bird Monitors for quick support!
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Ringer tee
Zippered Tote