Abattoir
by Ellen June Wright
Such a pretty word for
a slaughterhouse
rank with blood
and the stench
of unsellable parts—
burned.
It’s from the French—
‘to fell’
like a tree cut down
or a life in shambles
like a shanty after the storm
every board scattered.
Ellen June Wright is a poet based in Hackensack, New Jersey. She was born in England of West Indian parents and immigrated to the United States as a child. She attended school in New Jersey and taught high-school language arts for three decades. She has worked as a consulting teacher on the guides for three PBS poetry series called Poetry Haven, Fooling with Words and the Language of Life. Her poetry has most recently been published in River Mouth Review, Santa Fe Writers Project, New York Quarterly, The Elevation Review, The Caribbean Writer and, is forthcoming in, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora. Her work was selected as The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week for their website. She was a finalist in the Gulf Stream 2020 summer poetry contest and is a founding member of Poets of Color virtual poetry workshop in New Jersey. She studies writing at the Hudson Valley Writers Center in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Ellen can be found on Twitter@EllenJuneWrites.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Abattoir”? Inspiration is everywhere. I am a great fan of British crime dramas. One of my favorite shows is Vera, and in season eight, episode 1 a body is found in an abattoir. The word which is French fascinated me. It’s a pleasant word to say. It feels good in one’s mouth and such a beautiful word for a slaughterhouse. The incongruity seemed ripe for poetry.
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