Plucked Chicken, a journal of art and poetry, was founded in Morgantown, West Virginia, in 1977. The Chicago poet and writer, Effie Mihopoulos, provided a glimpse of the journalÕs birth in an April 1981 Serials Review:

The magazine was started because Petersen just having quit his teaching job [at the West Virginia University] (at 49) and feeling like a plucked chicken, had boxes and boxes of notes, letters, prose and other miscellanea that needed sharing, an outlet. He had a strong editorial background ranging from work with mimeographed magazines in grade school to [poet] Cid Corman's second Origin series; he was also associated with Bussei, which published [poet] Gary Snyder's first poems and [writer] Jack Kerouac's first haiku. Working with shapes one day, Petersen and his wife [Cynthia Archer] came up with one the size of a postage stamp that they liked - it looked like a plucked chicken, and since it seemed symbolic of the artist (a bird that can't fly, ready for the stew or to be barbecued, all goose bumps and no feathers), the name stuck.

The journal ended in 1980 with issue number six when Petersen and Archer moved to Chicago, but the name and logo continued to identify the press they had founded in 1978. Every print published by the Plucked Chicken Press was embossed with this logo.