I

CHICKEN
In this essay I focus on four poems 1 from Tender Buttons by Gertrude Stein. I will explore the
way in which Stein uses the metaphor of food wherein her poems culminate by equating
dessert in a multi-course meal to the act of sexual consummation.
Word is an operative unit for Stein. Her style of writing is not just political, trying to change
the context in which language is used and understood, but expects her readers to take some
efforts on their own to look at the meanings, that they associate with words and the world
around them. She stimulates readers to recreate associations or concomitance between
different elements of the world with its meaning and significance. This is an effort to reach
out to people expecting them to think for themselves, about their own world, fueling their
own problems of relating to the world around them, by increasing confusion within, to a level
at which they will not have any other option but to recognize all the connotations in new
ways.
When she is challenging the meaning of words or the way in which we understand language
to communicate, she even creates space for a feminist viewpoint through her style of writing.
She uses all those feminine objects to put forward problems that one faces just because born
as female as in case of prose poem ‘Petticoat’ in tender buttons. She tends to use all those
words which are culturally related to gender roles of female. In case of ‘chicken’ she uses all
those food items which are usually discussed in kitchen while cooking food which is the
stereotypical job of female only. But she uses same words to create completely different
meanings out of them and relationships that one develops culturally. Positive freedom, in the
sense of individual agency, is a consistent concern for Stein, who battled her older brother
Leo (at the time of the composition of Tender Buttons) and the domination of rigid cultural
norms and pressures of conformity to think, express, and act out singularly. The liberties
Stein sought to secure include the freedom not to maintain a particular individual identity, to
take on multiple identities (even to write as someone else) or to momentarily shirk identity
altogether to create (Matthews 2007). Stein discusses the need to step outside identity to
create in ‘What are master-pieces and why are there so few of them’, a lecture she delivered
at Oxford in February 1936. She emphasizes on the fact that one has no identity when one is
in act of doing anything. For her people worry too much about the capital letters, punctuation,
grammar or even the abstract. Everybody worries about this not because they know what

1 CHICKEN.
Pheasant and chicken, chicken is a peculiar third.

CHICKEN.
Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.

CHICKEN.
Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it. Mean. Why. Potato. Loaves.

CHICKEN.
Stick stick call then, stick stick sticking, sticking with a chicken. Sticking in a extra succession, sticking in.

Abhijeet Kulkarni | Roll no. 163603001 | Time And Narrative | Date:3 December 2016 | Term Paper
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master-piece is but they have found what is the master-piece is not. She talks about the
beginning and end of the master pieces because that is what keeps them different from all
other works. Every master-piece worry about the same but that is what gives the existence to
their art form. Even if someone tries to not having any beginning or end, they have to stop in
some way.
Her writing is an experimental effort to draw back attention to those particularities of an
object by associating unusual adjectives to the objects which are not typically used in
everyday understanding of the objects or space around us. This constructs completely
different meanings and significances out of those arrangement of words. In the poems
‘Chicken1’ she constantly uses numbers with some food items, uses words like ‘alas’, to
actually signify that it is some process which is continued over time, that it is not a good
process or something as an emotional response, an affect to her own writing which is
followed throughout. The problem of contextual reading is acknowledged by Stein’s work of
Tender Buttons where she works towards the democratization of time.
Her language is not easily consumed, still it may be consumed by anyone with sufficient
knowledge to read English alphabets or words if not more. Her writing is not limited with
some narrative or story telling style. She goes beyond gender biases or social relationships of
the objects to invade the idea of being politically right. She could have precisely use gendered
words in her poem, to make it explicit whether those who are sexually charged in the poem
are homosexual or heterosexual, who are those people or what is their social status as such.
On the other hand, she uses common nouns like ‘chicken and pheasant’ who can be of any
gender, rather than a genderless dove. She does not have strong narrative or set up an
environment to place her words. She prefers using words directly and makes her reader to use
the text in a way to redefine their internal relationship with the words itself. Basically she
wants her readers to become her writing, to make sense out of it. She is also entering into her
readers’ mind to deconstruct her writing in its own way. She is more individualistic in the
sense that the idea of sex or romantic relationship should not be limited with any gender at
all. She does not have any intention to promote specific way of comprehending particular act
or object, where as her writing allows all those possibilities to look at while in the process of
constructing any meaning at all.
We will deconstruct her style of writing through various aspects of these four poems
‘Chicken’ and understand it through syntactical as well as semantical structure. To start with
first will look at the placement of these four poems in the collection tender buttons. The four
successive poems with the title ‘CHICKEN’ in Tender Buttons communicate in two ways.
The consecutive pattern of four poems with the same title appears to be somewhat different
than the rest of the poems in the book. She usually writes about different food items in the
section but in this case she chooses to write these four poems on new page from the start
without any other poem prior to them on the page. This very placement of poems carves out
its space different than the rest.

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We tend make some connection between those poems and cannot think of those as separate
from each other as in other cases we do in the book. But then she could have chosen to write
all the lines in one title ‘chicken’ without actually splitting those into four different poems all
together. If she wanted us to perceive chicken in different ways, associating with different
areas of life with four different parts, then she could have placed those poems separately,
randomly with some other poems between the two titles “chicken”. But when she is
intentionally placing one poem after another the reader does not have any other choice but to
inter-relate those and construct some meaning around them. It is a peculiar style where Stein
controls and directs the perception of the reader in a specific way so that possible meaning
can come out of it that would not have emerged if those poems were disjointed.
The repetition of the title ‘Chicken’ we tend to read all four poems together and all the words
gets somewhere registered inside our brains. This very idea of repetition is followed
throughout the four poems. Due to this repetition some words which are read previously are
forgotten or misread or even registered with contradictory association between the words in
later part of the poem. For instance, the first poem starts with ‘Pheasant and chicken, chicken
is a peculiar third.’ Where ‘pheasant’ could be read as ‘pleasant’ or registered as ‘pleasant’
when we keep on reading later poem where she writes ‘Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third
alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.’ Now this repetition of word dirty and even pointing out
that ‘word is dirty’ we start processing chicken as not just some food item that to be
consumed that is being talked about but there is something more to it. It is quite an innovative
way in which Stein wants her readers to not just make some associations between words and
make meaning out of it for themselves but even makes readers to misread the words, which
are not accidental placement of the words as in this case of pheasant and pleasant, but have
some real life meaning associated with it. Here she intentionally makes her readers to read
words in incorrect fashion.
When we read all four poems we realize there is some sense of numbers, that is developed
after reading them. As in the case ‘Pheasant and chicken’ invokes idea of two in the first
poem, but we cannot know what two, why two because further she repeats third, so idea of
two or three is not important for her. More to it, both the chicken and pheasant do not indicate
any gender so it is no more than flesh to be consumed.
It is not only repetition of title of poems one after another or making readers to misread the
words which provokes the uncertainty about the structure of poem but once that collective
reading of four poems is achieved then in the third poem she says:
‘Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it. Mean. Why. Potato.
Loaves.’
It is not only a poem, but this is where she breaks the fourth wall and communicates with her
readers directly. She starts with saying alas a doubt, in case of more, go, to say, what it is
cress. Now she does not put any commas or any punctuation but sprinkles that whole line
with words, alas a doubt, more, go, say, what. This triggers a series of thoughts questioning
the ways in which we are reading these poems. These thoughts might start with something

Abhijeet Kulkarni | Roll no. 163603001 | Time And Narrative | Date:3 December 2016 | Term Paper
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like ‘finally I have reached to the third poem with same title, now I doubt why am I even
reading these poems collectively but not separately. What is more to it? What does the poet
really want say out of all these poems? Is there any way to go ahead out of this or will it even
go anywhere?’ Now the reason these thoughts are triggered in the question format is because
the next phrase is direct question after the first phrase, ‘what is it.’ But it is not even a
question for her. She does not even put question mark after that but automates the process of
questioning due to the fact whole poem is sprinkled with repetition of interrogative words of
what and why. Here she is precisely mediating meaning through syntactical structure.
While describing sexual drive through symbols of food in the last phrases of the poem, she
separates out all the vegetable by putting full stop in between. By doing so one is stuck with
individual vegetables separately constructing some imageries around those simple food items
after the long sentence before without any punctuation at all. This drastic change into
punctuation and making it so absurd to comprehend because of the unnecessary punctuations
at the first glance and missing those important punctuations which are expected by the reader
in the same poem at the first.
There is one more specific reason that why she might be introducing these interrogative
words in the third poem. She could have even placed this poem at the fourth place but she
does not, is quite aesthetic in that way. Where she relates this very third poem 2 with
penultimate course in the meal as something most satisfying. The culinary satisfaction of the
third course is like an aesthetic pleasure of understanding the third poem. When we think of
chicken as food it is the third course of the meal which is supposed to fill up our appetite.
This idea of third is even developed in second poem when she highlights the word ‘third’ into
second poem3. So she feels that in the third poem reader should think about getting some
meaning out of it then you will be filled with some understanding.
In this same poem2 the cycles of self-reflection are presented in a way, where people start
doubting their own intentions behind their own actions or intentions that appears like a
monologue, “why are we getting sexually charged and getting attracted to other bodies; What
is really happening right now? Why are we thinking of and even getting into foreplay
experiencing these intimate relations with other (The idea of foreplay or sexually charged
description is undertone; using symbols potatoes- which signifies curvy nature of body that
can be breasts or scrotum and cress- as something hairy; like pubic hairs and so, whereas
loaves symbolizes something soft cushiony, which invokes the images of thighs or arms.)?”
As one starts getting engaged into each other, their appetite for sex comes to the foreground
and in a way they emotionally start consuming the sexual object. Even though getting
attracted to each other and participate in sexual activity comes natural to them, they do try to
find some meaning in it. On the other hand, the word ‘mean’ points out the doubt that one has
about the intentions of their own or other person, that isn’t it something very mean to think of
other person as an object of gratification and looking for sexual satisfaction?

2 Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it. Mean. Why. Potato. Loaves.

3 Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.

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With this whole structure the four poems, which are to be considered as one unit, starts
unfolding when we reach the fourth poem which conspicuously hints at the act of sex. She
writes:
‘Stick stick call then, stick stick sticking, sticking with a chicken. Sticking in a extra
succession, sticking in.’
The whole idea of repetition of the words, which comes down gradually towards the end of
the fourth poem with intense repetition of the word ‘stick’ is done quite strategically, which
eventually builds up the tempo. When she says ‘sticking with a chicken’ it stimulates us to
perceive this set of four poems as a building up of sexual relationship which progressively
ends with orgasm when she uses final phrase ‘sticking in.’ In this case, this fourth poem can
be thought of as a dessert, something that we end a meal with – a representation of something
sweet which concludes the meal. Not only that but something which is of great satisfaction
where we are heading towards already, even before when we start with the appetizer.
Somewhere we have in mind that we will be having dessert at the end.
Due to the syntactical structure of sentence in the last poem 4, we get the sense that the
copulation has finally taken place, after the intense internal conflicts (This internal conflict
which is represented around the semantics of the third poem is discussed in the later part of
the essay) about the very idea of the sexual act in the third poem. This somehow touches
upon the idea of time, and develops the sense that actions are happening one after another.
The uneasiness developed due to intense internal conflicts and frustrations developed because
of the social, hegemonic understanding of human relationships is blown out during the actual
act of sexual intercourse, represented by intense repetition of the word ‘stick’ and ‘sticking’,
thereby developing a sense of passionate sex in the last poem. The repetition is used so
intensely in it that the whole buildup of tempo reaches to its peak. It is not only the repetition
of the word, but the way she uses the punctuation and syntax in the very last poem 5 makes all
the difference. This repetition results into the sensual framework of fast and slow.
First looking at the very two phrases of last poem ‘Stick stick call then, stick stick sticking,’ it
does not make much of the sense in anyways, then one word being used with variety, but
splitting the sentence in between and creating small phrases by the use of commas, creates the
rhythmic pattern. She ends the first sentence with the third phrase ‘sticking with a chicken.’
Which hints at the progression of the act towards the end by slowing down the pace of the
action. Which is further supplemented with last sentence to bring tempo at still.
This peculiar arrangement of sentences and phrases in last two poems, one after another is
used in a way to organize logical structure of the sentence to develop sense of urgency or
sense of passion; where she destabilizes the normative grammar of the sentence. As in the last
sentence of the fourth poem: ‘Sticking in a extra succession, sticking in.’ by just putting ‘a’
prior to ‘extra’ which would be ‘an’ in normal scenario. But this ‘a’ in place of ‘an’ serves the
dual purpose of converting whole sense in which that one phrase is used by ending that

4 Stick stick call then, stick stick sticking, sticking with a chicken. Sticking in a extra succession, sticking in.

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sentence with ‘sticking in’ after the comma. It does not only emphasize on ‘sticking in’ but
also creates meaning, that of the last moment or something that has stopped or ended.
Similarly in the third poem5, first sentence does not have any punctuation mark at all. When
she is using excessive punctuation marks all over the place in these four poems, she chooses
not to use any in first sentence of third poem 6 in contrast to those five phrases7 in later part of
the poem are split; each phrase separated by full stops. If we focus on that very first sentence,
we realize why she might have chosen not to use any punctuation at all, when the actual role
of punctuation is to ease the process of reading and comprehend it as quickly as possible
enabling one to move on to the next sentence. One more thing to this very sentence is that it
is very lengthy sentence compared to all other sentences in these four poems, which are pretty
short and cut into some phrases or parts. As discussed before all four poems have some tempo
and rhythmic choice of the words which eventually builds up as we move forwards to the end
of fourth poem which comes down to a still with complete bliss with the phrase ‘sticking in’.
So here in the third poem idea of building up the speed is controlled by this complex structure
of the first sentence which makes reader to go over same line again and again invoking some
understanding or realization of its meaning. Now this complexity is not only directed
externally to communicate with readers but points at internal monologue of recurring
thoughts and struggles that one experiences when charged sexually which is stimulated due to
social hegemonic structures. Where in the society, one is judged based upon their capacity to
restrain from sexual desires or behavior in relation with others.
The change in punctuation style of the poem communicates with the reader in many ways. It
slows down reader, to move towards the second sentence of the poem, but at the same time
internal cycles of thoughts are fastened as in case of those who are sexually charged and are
willing to engage into the sexual act but restricted within their mind. The disparity between
thoughts and action, where people face the difficulty to match the speed of their thoughts in
the real life to act upon their desires and willingness to engage into some action (which is as
primitive as sex in this case) is represented through complex usage of punctuation and
juxtaposed one long sentence to the five successive short phrases.
As we start decoding the syntactical structure of these four poems we realize that Stein also
uses semantic devices to challenge the readers into reading the poems more carefully. One
example of this would be when Stein breaks the fourth wall and addresses the reader and
questions the reader’s comprehension to get over the problem of deconstruction in the third
poem8. The problem can be articulated thus: In the process of reading something beyond that
is written and making meaning out of those abstract relations of the words, there is a
possibility to over-read the content and use the text for supporting our own ideas about the
world when we read something so complex as that of Stein. As deconstruction demonstrates
that any text has more than one interpretation; but in the process of constructing meaning

5Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it. Mean. Why. Potato. Loaves.
6Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress.
7What is it. Mean. Why. Potato. Loaves.
8Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it. Mean. Why. Potato. Loaves.

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around the text there is a possibility to miscomprehend all those things which are not even
written in the text and not even intended to be understood from the text. So in process of
constructing meaning it becomes quite significant to stick with the text and not to use the text
to support desired meaning out of it.
This struggle has been going on since the Greeks, but it is doomed because language is, as
Saussure says, nothing but differences. No word can acquire meaning in the way in which
philosophers from Aristotle to Bertrand Russell have hoped it might -- by being the
unmediated expression of something non-linguistic (e.g., an emotion, a sense-datum, a
physical object, an idea, a Platonic Form) (Selden 1995).
When Saussure talks about language as nothing but differences, he points out that the
language is not that concrete as it is supposed to be even with all those syntactical rules of
grammar and standardized construction of it. So there is and will be possibility of one some
text to be read in various ways with various context in which they are read. For him language
is a system of differences with no positive terms. This very idea of language where he goes
onto explaining relation between structures of language and cultural structures as if language
determines cultural and even social experience.
The very idea of getting out of normative grammar and building up sentences that do not
have conventional logical understanding about how a text is to be read, makes it possible for
Stein to build secondary meaning around the word than the meaning of the word itself. The
basic syntactical or semantical structure which is used is based upon the expectation, that the
readers will be trained to read any text more clearly and understandably without getting into
the trap of traditional meaning making processes of the sentences. When some words are used
in a particular sentence or the punctuation that is used in it, has some definite purpose to give
meaning to the sentence and not just mechanical process of doing things in the right way. As
in the case of third poem: “Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it.
Mean. Why. Potato. Loaves.”, it can be read some thing related to the food and asked what
these food items (Cress, potao, loves) really are. But since four poems are related with each
other in some sense, even after not having question marks after the interrogative sentences,
some half phrases allows one to read more carefully than just mechanical understanding of
the words.
When Stein writes with her own style of grammar and uses some common nouns ‘Pheasant
and chicken,’ in the first poem9, it is not only what those two simple words mean but are used
in the context where both of them are consumed. Stein does not find nouns to be interesting
as she mentions this in her talk ‘Poetry & Grammar’ in 1935, “A noun is a name of anything,
why after a thing is named write about it. A name is adequate or it is not. If it is adequate then
why go on calling it, if it is not then calling it by its name does no good.” So here she takes
those common nouns as the contextual part of verb which signifies actual act of consumption,
but symbolizes the idea of flesh. As discussed before because of structure of the poem there is
possibility to even misread the word ‘Pheasant’ as pleasant and relate internally which

9Pheasant and chicken, chicken is a peculiar third.

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appears to be quite intentional in the use. As definition goes, noun is the name of the thing.
For Stein if one feels what is inside the thing, we do not call it by the name which is known
by everyone. For example, the people or objects which are very close to us emotionally we
tend to give some pet name to that person which signifies belonging to that person. Same way
for Stein, writer should always have that intensity of emotion about whatever is the object
about which he writes. This strong emotional content is felt by the readers when one gets
deep inside her writing. Which eventually makes her to think that nouns should not be used.
In all the poems she does not mention the verb which directs towards the consumption of
food directly but uses cognitive mechanism of co-relation of words and the way our cognition
works to make meaning out of some random words as it happens in the procedure of Deese–
Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm (Stadler 1999). According to DRM, when people are
presented with list of related words (e.g. bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze,
blanket, doze, slumber, snore, nap, peace, yawn, drowsy) and then recalled they tend to
cognize related but non presented word (e.g. sleep). Similarly, in this case she uses all kind of
food items in each of the poem without actually attributing any verb to it; but eventually
reader tend to understand all those common nouns as something related to act of consumption
which is obvious relationship one might have due to survival instincts of human being.
The same way while mediating meaning through semantics, while reading the fourth poem
we realize that, the first poem represents the appetizer, where some people (we cannot say
much about the gender as those can be two males, two females or even one male, one female
or even more than just two people) meet with pleasure, happiness, where chicken symbolizes
the body or just flesh. The second poem represents the starters where people will start having
some nasty, sexually loaded, conversations with each other where they tend to objectify
bodies for sexual gratification, calling the flesh dirty when she writes ‘dirty bird.’ As in case
of chicken these are the dirty, smelly, ugly type of members of the farm community. These
are the negotiations that one goes under when dealing with collective sense of being with
their individual being. We tend to process the information from outside based upon the
cultural heritage of the society we are born into. There are pre-conceived notions of right or
wrong when we deal with the people around us through social understanding of the being
individual. How much ever we think of our bodies to be dirty or bad, not accepting ourselves
confined within the limitations of the body, ultimately we are what we are in this body (‘alas
a dirty bird.’) This ultimate acceptance and connotations associated with body are highlighted
with the repeated word ‘dirty’ calling that word ‘dirty’ to be dirty itself and one should go
beyond these words to accept what we are and what we can be.
From this analysis it can be concluded that, it is no accident that four poems are structured in
a specific way in collection Tender Buttons. The four poems resemble a four course meal.
Dessert is like sexual consummation. Stein challenges rules of grammar to draw readers out
of comfort zone and engage with the poem. She uses semantics to prevent over-reading.
Language determines the way one understand their culture and define social interactions.

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For me, reading Stein was very natural process in a way, to relate all those ideas presented in
the prose poems to different areas of life and come down to some understanding of the text
due to the fact there was not anything concrete which was supposed to be derived from the
text. It was an opportunity to redefine my own understanding about the world which was pre-
given to my existence. It helped me to realize meanings which are given to the world outside
are not universal and possibly cannot be so, ever. There are multiple possibilities to interpret
this world and that is what makes life interesting. Then only question remains for me is: What
is the foundation on which I want to delimit all those relations of this world?

References
Stein, Gertrude. Tender Buttons: The Corrected Centennial Edition. City Lights Publishers,
(2014): 35.
Prince, Gerald, and Raman Selden. "The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism. Vol. 8,
From Formalism to Poststructuralism." (1995): 110.
Stadler, Michael A., Henry L. Roediger, and Kathleen B. McDermott. "Norms for word lists
that create false memories." Memory & cognition 27, no. 3 (1999): 494-500.
Matthews, Carrie R. Articulations of Anarchist Modernism: Putting Art to Work. ProQuest,
2007.
Stein, Gertrude. " What are master-pieces and why are there so few of them? (1936)." (1970).
Stein, Gertrude. Lectures in America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1935.

Words: 5,012

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