Sparrows have appeared in poetry throughout time—from Catullus writing about Lesbia’s pet sparrow to works by Sappho, Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Charles Bukowski. In Susan Howe’s Penitential Cries, forthcoming in September from New Directions, the concluding poem, “Chipping Sparrow,” with its clipped pacing and sound, as if to mimic a sparrow’s, illuminates a clear-eyed but lyrical notion of time as well as the physicality of life as experienced from the eighty-eight-year-old poet’s perspective. “Left the body // Drowsd a little / Done with soul / – // What to think / Dusting up crown // Garment mirror / Pull me close / – // Quietness and calm / Rest and rejoice // No more doubt / Astonishing!” Spend some time browsing through poems that mention this ubiquitous bird and note the range of symbolism: eros, love, humility, fragility. Then write your own sparrow poem that commemorates where you are in your life.
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