I do hope the latest Island Writers assignment hasn’t put the cat among the pigeons. It was based on a book with the word ‘canaries’ in the title, but as I know only one poem about canaries, I widened the topic to Cage Birds.
The poem? Oh, go on, then:
The song of canaries
Never varies
But when they're moulting
They're pretty revolting.
~ Ogden Nash
The first question to consider is, do we mean ‘cage birds’ or ‘caged birds,’ and is there a difference? I’d suggest that there is.
Cage birds are those birds which are commonly kept in cages and have been bred for many generations as pets: canaries, zebra finches, budgerigars, parrots, etc.
Caged birds could include other birds which are often free-ranging in an open-topped enclosure or live in the wild, but in this instance are being kept caged, perhaps in a farm or zoo: chickens, ducks, owls, hawks, vultures, etc.
Not that it makes a feather of difference to this assignment. If you’ve got an idea for your creative writing, let your imagination take flight and use it; don’t let an arbitrary distinction hang like an albatross around your neck!
So, why a caged bird, particularly?
The power relationship between a caged bird and its owner can be fascinating. What kind of person must the owner be, to confine a living creature that they claim to love? Do they believe themselves justified – or kind – in keeping a bird in captivity because it would die if it was released into the wild? Does the bird see its owner as a friend, or just a provider? There’s certainly evidence to suggest parrots feel an emotional bond with their keepers.
While any pet or wild animal would probably choose to roam as it wishes, rather than being enclosed, the bird’s ability to fly makes its imprisonment seem a greater contrast, and therefore a greater deprivation. Can we truly understand how a bird feels, when it is denied the right to fly freely? Does it actually yearn for freedom as an abstract concept, or is it content with having its needs met? Does a bird that’s been bred as a pet perceive being let out into a room for exercise as merely a larger cage, or does it believe this experience is all the freedom life has to offer?
How can we use the idea of a caged bird for a piece of writing?
Of course, there’s a short story about a person who owns a caged bird, or the relationships among a group of caged birds, or perhaps a funny poem about a bird who keeps a human pet in a cage. You may be inspired to write a memoir of a pet you once knew, or a childhood visit to a zoo or farm. Alternatively, you might create an opinion piece, arguing for or against keeping cage birds or caged poultry.
If you’re writing fiction or poetry, your caged birds may be symbolic of their owner’s physical loss of freedom, such as in The Birdman of Alcatraz, or the ‘cage’ may be an emotional or physical restriction caused by a controlling person or a repressive regime: Maya Angelou’s poem, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings refers to the emotions created by slavery.
And for a short story, you might have an ‘unreliable narrator,’ where the person telling the story turns out to be a cage bird, or a character who is described as a bird is actually a human prisoner.
Of course, your cage can also give your readers a surprise. Maybe the bird (or ‘bird’ character) feels perfectly happy and protected in their cage, and dreads having to leave. Or maybe they long for freedom, but end up wishing they were back in their cage.
Whatever you decide to write, don’t get into a flap, but if you want to improve your place in the pecking order and become a fully-fledged writer, bring your assignment to the next Island Writers meeting at 7pm on Tuesday 21st September. Unless you’re too chicken!
