Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts

by J. Drew Lanham

“You are a rare bird, easy to see but invisible just the same.” That thought is close at hand in Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts, as renowned naturalist and writer J. Drew Lanham explores his obsession with birds and all things wild in a mixture of poetry and prose. He questions vital assumptions taken for granted by so many birdwatchers: can birding be an escape if the birder is not in a safe place? Who is watching him as he watches birds?

With a refreshing balance of reverence and candor, Lanham paints a unique portrait of the natural world: listening to cicadas, tracking sandpipers, towhees, wrens, and cataloging fellow birdwatchers at a conference where he is one of two black birders. The resulting insights are as honest as they are illuminating.

Genres: Poetry, Nature, Birds, Animals, Nonfiction, Science, Social Justice

104 pages, Hardcover

First published April 13, 2021

About the author

A native of Edgefield, South Carolina, J. Drew Lanham is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal. He is a birder, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist who has published essays and poetry in publications including Orion, Audubon, Flycatcher, and Wilderness, and in several anthologies, including The Colors of Nature, State of the Heart, Bartram’s Living Legacy, and Carolina Writers at Home. An Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University, he and his family live in the Upstate of South Carolina, a soaring hawk’s downhill glide from the southern Appalachian escarpment that the Cherokee once called the Blue Wall.

Reviews

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to J. Drew Lanham on the On Being podcast and then immediately purchased Sparrow Envy from Hub City Press - he writes about birds, mostly poems but some other forms including a few lists. It's meditative at times, with protest and reinvention in other moments. I got to the end and started again. I can't quite express how a little poem about a bird can be such an uplift.

Favorites:

Lifeless List
\ LUV \
On Finding Swamp Religion

[Basia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was right up my alley, by my window where I watch the birds, and is now in my heart. Reading the work of a fellow black birdwatcher felt like a hug. I'm thinking especially of the book's title poem, in which the speaker imagines living the life of one of the most dismissed groups of songbirds, a life enviable for its ease, one that relishes in refuse: "I would slink / between sedges / chip unseen from brambles / skulk deep within hedges / and desire the ditches grown wild." And I'm also thinking of what he writes of the complicated delight of witnessing birds in the wild—"To escape for a few hours in other breathing being's lives"—when so much of your own life entails witnessing a particular kind of depravity. What's especially exciting about this collection is what J. Drew Lanham urges us to reconsider and reclaim. Why not reimagine a group of crows as a consideration or council? Or more jovially, why not reimagine the warbler named after John James Audubon himself as the octaroon warbler, "since Johnny couldn't bear the very thought / of interracial miscegenation." Ha!

[Shirleynature · Rating 5 out of 5]

Passionate love songs to nature from the author of “The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature”. Begin with the Glossary at the back and don’t miss “9 Rules for the Black Birder”!

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not a poetry critic, but I love sitting with an authors love for something and that’s exactly what I got from this book.

[s · Rating 4 out of 5]

a bit unpolished and repetitive but still wonderful. his biggest strength as a poet is definitely his masterful use of sound devices. many of these poems rolled of the tongue—the brain?—beautifully. and this was of course dear to me because i think birds are the loveliest creatures on earth. i could devour endless amounts of meditations on their existence. but this collection was also about his experience as a black man in america and as a black birder; i found those poems particularly striking, especially against ones contemplating the oblivion and freedom of birds, and they left me with plenty to think about. i definitely will be checking out his memoir!

i’m gonna go ahead and leave the title poem here because it’s gorgeous

Were I the sparrow
brown-backed skittish and small—
I would find haven
in thorniest thickets—
search far and wide for fields lain fallow
treasure the unkempt
worship the unmown
covet the weed-strewn row

I would slink
between sedges
chip unseen from brambles
skulk deep within hedges
and desire the ditches grown wild

I would find great joy
in the mist-sodden morning
sing humble pleas
from the highest weeds
and plead
for the gray days to stay

[Bogi Takács]

Great nature poetry also with some reflections on engaging with nature while being Black in the US. Now I really need to read his other book too. Sad I missed his talk when he was in town - I wanted to go, but I ended up too unwell to do it. I could console myself a little bit with this chapbook.
_________
Source of the book: Lawrence Public Library

[Dianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drew Lanham has been my hero for the past year or two, very influential as I've started building my birding skills. Lanham is one of the rare Black birders and conservationists, and he was contracted to speak (virtually) this spring with almost every nature organization I affiliate with - he must have been exhausted. Did I mention such gorgeous writing? - with a bit of whiplash as he connects Blackness with brown birds that are rarely noticed or appreciated. This man worships birds - his poems are a feast. To be read over and over.....

[Kristen Vlahiotis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such beautiful poetry, I really can’t put how this made me feel into words. His nine rules for black birders at the end of the book was impactful and a reminder of the privilege many birders carry. He followed this up with steps for how to adore birds, which was such a fantastic ending to this book. The step that stood out for me was his perspective on conservation.

“Conservation is the act of caring so intensely for something that you want only the best for its survival and future being. That intense care and love, is called conservation.”

This intense care and love for all is why I chose to have a career caring for the land, the ocean and all beings.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Until such time as the sun ceases to set in the west or migrating birds no longer ply dark heaven following guiding stars, I hope. I watch. I breathe.”

“Do you know how hard it is
to admire plumage on a bird?
To separate one warbler chip note from another?
Or count
the telltale hind wing spots on a butterfly?
Or remember the name of a wildflower seen a hundred times?
Or gather the energy to find the
Latin binomial of a beetle in a field guide?
Or even give a fuck what the name of anything is
beyond the last Black body that lay still after being murdered by the police?”

“Nature asks only that we notice—a sunrise here, a sunset there. The surge, that overwhelming inexplicable thing in a swallow’s joyous flight or the dawning of new light that melds heart and head into sensual soul in that moment of truly seeing—that is love.”

Oh, how we need poets right now! Lanham’s writing is intricate, thoughtful, and a bit mind-bending. I’ve never had to look up so many words in such a brief volume (mostly scientific words related to birds), but what an enriching experience. Lanham “questions vital assumptions taken for granted by so many birdwatchers: can birding be an escape if the birder is not in a safe place? Who is watching him as he watches birds?”

Through a mixture of poetry and prose, we glimpse the world through Lanham’s perspective as an avid birder who is acutely aware that he is one of very few Black folks in the birding community. Reading this book was an embodied, joy-filled experience that also named grievous realities. What a gift.

[Jojo · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a wildlife biologist, birder, and poet, this collection was a letdown. After hearing a reading of Lanham's title poem, "Sparrow Envy," on a podcast, I was thrilled to pick up a copy of this collection. Sadly, "Sparrow Envy" and the piece "Thrush Lust" were the only two in this collection that wowed me.

Lanham began this collection with not only a passion for nature and birds, but also for justice and equality. However, the way he approached writing about these passions, and intertwining them, came off as sloppy and overdone.

Reading this collection was so frustrating, because here is someone with a great message to portray, who also has a good platform to do so. But, the way he addressed these difficult issues was without tact and came off as a lengthy rant that made false comparisons to the natural world.

In "Field Mark 5: How Not to Watch Birds", he observes a Grasshopper Sparrow singing perched on a fence line and envies the freedom with which they live life, saying they are "concerned with nothing else but being themselves." Anyone with a solid knowledge of the natural world understands that this is a ridiculous comparison — what of nature is not grisly and entirely dependent on survival? We as humans are so detached from this reality because we have created safe spaces for ourselves to live and have killed off many major predators.

To add to the sloppiness, I also found multiple grammatical/spelling errors. How is this possible in such a small collection with so few words?

Another further frustration was his defense of invasive species, such as European Starlings and invasive plants (in the pieces "III. Group Think: New Names for Plural Birds", "Weed Worship", and "Field Mark 17: Good Enough"). As a biologist, this view of invasive species is what is harming our ecosystems. Invasive species are incredibly detrimental to all of the birds he claims to love so much, as well as their habitats, but he decides to use his platform to denounce this mentality as prejudice against a misunderstood organism. Clearly, he really does not care about the birds he claims to; that, or he really has no understanding of basic ecology.

This is yet another case of someone with a platform using it poorly. This collection, though brimming with promise and great ideas, fell flat, and many of his pieces meant to inspire intense thought are lacking true substance upon inspection.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. J. Drew Lanham is a Wildlife Ecology professor at Clemson University who has written a thoughtful and important book of poetry and prose arising from themes within his own life experience as a Black ornithologist and naturalist who is also deeply committed to the Social Justice and Civil Rights movements.

Sparrow Envy is a groundbreaking, eye-opening and timely book. Dr. Lanham takes us to the existential place where his deep and abiding love of nature comes up against the strange realities he often faces as a Black ornithologist. His odes to various bird species are as moving to read as his observations about social injustice and birding while Black. Both personal and political, Lanham’s poems challenge the status quo within environmental and ornithological circles. Extolling the beauty of the natural world, he also examines the cultural context (the surrounding habitat, if you will) of our country’s history of slavery and racism.

My husband is currently reading Dr. Lanham’s memoir of growing up in rural South Carolina, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature. I can’t wait to get started on that once hubby finishes it. And fyi, if you ever have an opportunity to hear Dr. Lanham speak, go for it. We listened to an inspiring webinar interview with him recently ~ great stuff.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many wonderful and some downright beautiful poems in this collection. I look forward to listening him read his memoir called A Home Place.

[Dodi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts reveals J. Drew Lanham's love of birds. Mostly poetry, this short book also includes several short prose pieces and a couple of lists. I wish I had looked over the book more carefully before I read it, and used the glossary first.

My favorite work was the title poem, Sparrow Envy because I, too, have often imagined being a bird and figuring I would enjoy that life. I related to the prose piece, Hard Pan Life. Lanham poignantly describes the hard work of a mule team plowing the land. His detailed observations create vivid imagery and reflection.

Lanham alludes to the struggles of being Black in America, specifically being a Black birder in America. When I grabbed this book from the library, I had no idea the author was Black. If not for the frequent references to being Black--I wouldn't have known. I'm glad to know as it's an integral part of his identity. This book is an ode to nature, and everyone can appreciate that.

[Grady J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic collection of poems. I find so much enjoyment and appreciation for verse that can capture fleeting moments in time and emotions that go beyond our common vernacular. Lanham's work has this in spades. He excels most, I think, in capturing the heavy ache of grief in many poems in part two, but also in how he paints despair (notably as a black man in the American south grappling with current and past racial violence), wishing, glimpses of hope, and appreciation for little things that we hide away in our hearts for dark days. The content is largely bird-focused, (he hooked me with the first mention of how amazing wood thrushes are) but the work isn't solely for the avian-inclined. I won't revisit all of the poems in the collection, but the work as a whole is engaging and affecting. Highly recommended!

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

“more and more four walls feels like a trap- a cage with no escape. not being out; not wandering somewhere wild- seems sinful. there’s something wonderful i’m not witnessing.”

“every bird is a life bird. every time. the first time or the thousandth time. if you’re breathing when you see the bird, it’s a lifer.”

a lovely book of poetry gifted to me by a dearest friend. ♡🕊️

[Elias · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was basically my first ever real try at reading poetry and ngl I still don't really know how to read it.. But I did like a lot of the poems and had a great time overall!

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of beautifully contemplative poems that engage with the natural world while also shedding light on the human world that affects it so profoundly. Lanham is an astute observer of all animals, including the human ones, and it’s an educational joy to see through his eyes.

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was beautiful! Buffalo trace was my favorite~

[Lea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection spoke right to my bird living soul. I savored every poem and prose. I have already gone back and read some favorites.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as an e-book through my public library's Hoopla service. The formatting was almost unreadable. But I soldiered on because it's so amazing. Thrushes figure prominently in these pieces, which is no bad thing. Also, his writing touches on his experience as a Black naturalist, and as a Black American in general. It's quite powerful. I can't wait to read his The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature.

Some of my favorites from this book:

Octoroon Warbler
No Murder of Crows
Migration
Hard Pan Life
How to Adore Birds
Group Think: New Names for Plural Birds

And the glossary at the end is a thing of pure genius...

[Momo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 I recommend this collection but there were a few pieces that I found myself having to reread but the rest were really good! I love this type of hardback that’s that smooth texture so I probably will be splurging on a sixteen dollar copy for my own shelves eventually.

I’m so glad I can finally go in a get books from my library because I’ve been enjoying it so much! <3

[carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

The language in this book is beautiful. You expect that of poetry - and this book is a blend of poetry, prose, vocabulary, and Annie Dillard like stream of consciousness rambling. There are observations on life in the current moment well-ground in an abundant appreciation of nature and birding. Simply excellent and look forward to finding everything JDL writes.

[Ray Zimmerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Read

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

WREN R. E. M

it sings heart-full to the limits of the bounds it knows—

a wanderer in the present tense future perfect does not exist the past makes little sense that I should live as wisely as wrens is lesson one carpe diem ad infinitum

Field Mark 2: Awegasm

The quasi-erotic, parasensual overwhelm of the
Senses, especially in response to nature and non-
Human beings or the associated phenomenona of
Wildness such as the flight of a an other-worldly
Bird (e.g. swallow-tailed kite), a heart-rending
Salt marsh sunset bleeding through dusk, a Blue
Ridge mountain sunrise peeling through holler
Rising fog, or a waxing gibbous moon interrupted
By tundra swan flight. It may result in the oozing
Of unintelligible words of joy and bliss. Tears and
And uncontrolled laughter may occur simultaneously.
See also...feralize, lunar lust, treehug, wanton-wander.

LIFELESS LIST

Do you know
How hard it is
To admire plumage on a bird?
To separate one warbler chip note
From another?
Or count
The telltale hind wing spots
On a butterfly?
Or remember the name of a wildflower
Seen a hundred times?
Or gather the energy to find the
Latin binomial of beetle in a field guide?
Or even given a fuck what the name
Of anything is
Beyond the last Black body that
Lay still after being murdered
By the police?

I can no longer keep track
Of the last hurricane that blew in from the earth’s
Rising heat.
Of the last tweet inciting riot.
The last fire that burned and burned
And burned.
Of the hundreds of thousands of infected
And dead.
It is a sad exhausting lifeless list I’d rather not
Keep,
Growing longer by the hour.
There ‘s little room in my heart
These dark days
For listing anything.
Hardest task comes
In not becoming a member
Of a litany of dread.
______________________
There are 2 parts of the review; the first from a head and heart and eyes opened and in sync with the words the poet writes and the experience of nature from a Black perspective (the poet’s title of his memoir uses the word COLORED to describe himself as a way to redeem the word and expand and amplify what it means to hold the colors of the universe in you.) From his pain and fear, the poet makes beauty and there is nothing more beautiful.

The second part is an experience I had recently, sitting in a shaded area near the coffee shop of my resort in the Caribbean, with tables made from intricate and complicated tree stumps, and a giant native golden fig (similar to a strangler fig tree) in the center and this gorgeous bird song competing with hits of the eighties. Just as I am reading this poem in the book:

HOW TO ADORE BIRDS

1. love and appreciate all things with feathers.
2. Everyone has a bird story. EVERYONE.
3. Never ever forget the beauty in the common thing. Take time to recognize the subtle differences in cardinal crest perkiness or crow blackness.
4. Slow down. Absorb birds.
5. Every bird is a life bird. Every time. The first time or the thousandth time. If you’re breathing when you see the bird, it’s a lifer.
6. Don’t take yourself so seriously.
7. List birds with your heart. You’ll not forget them when written in blood with a pulse.
8. Be the bird. See the miracle in each and every one of them. Conservation is the act of caring so intensely for something that you only want the best for its survival and sure being.
9. Find a way to share your love on not just birds- but nature- with others. Even better if the ones shared with don’t have your skin color or ethnicity...

I asked the staff to pause the music for a little while so I could record the birdsong and listen for a while, and they did with a smile, and I watched the light shift in the breeze and the birds move around the tree and the lizards running around, and was purely alive in the moment. That is my most recent bird story. What is yours?
__________________________

FIELD MARK 3: WOOD THRUSH ID (MADE SIMPLE)
It’s not so much about identifying what birds are, as feeling who birds are. Head nods, jaw drops, smiles, tears and abject adoration, are all “feel marks” for identifying the wood thrush—a brown-backed, forest-singing soul seldom seen, but more often heard and felt deeply. As this bird pumped its heart out in auto three-part harmony, the one inside...as my heart’s glow pulses brighter in bittering cold.

OCTOROON WARBLER

As a taxonomic committee of one, I alone have decided that the past transgressions of long ago dead and rotted bird watchers must be amended. That it is my sole responsibility—and pleasure— to right the wrongs of racist slave-holding artist ornithologists. of genocidal complicit naturalists. of grave-robbing skull-fondling phrenologists. of the lot of white-supremacist men with the self-serving penchant for naming things after themselves...

Bachman’s sparrow, denizen of long-leaf pine savannah; of wiregrass, of fire-kissed sandy ground shall be once again be “pine woods.”

I would have suggested “Tubman’s warbler,” but then why make it any easier to erase blackness when extinction has already done the job? LeConte’s Sparrow will hence forward be “orange-faced.”

Townsend’s Solitaire, thrush-esque thing of western slope migration is now “Up-and-Down Solitaire.” Mobile altitudinal propensity taken into full account...

To even the score a bit more redact the other leader Lewis from the northern Rockies woodpecker. He of Trail of Tears Cherokee removal infamy...

Christen the gorgeous picid Sacagawea’s Woodpecker instead...

Audubon’s orioles shall be Rio Grande. The sea-going petrel with the artist’s moniker shall now be “Warm-Sea Wanderer.”

THRUSH LUST

It is a jigsaw puzzled thing until a ripening want calls, —hangs— Tempts. Hidden form revealed cannot resist what begs taking. Is whole until the mystery thinks better of what it knows itself to be.

A secret whisper on night wind fades quiet into imagining. Fragments scattered. to. past. tense. A hushed wish, un- believed.

EGG BLUES
Who takes care of whom? Knows the itches to scratch? Can find the place where you retreat within your own wildness to escape— but leave you there trusting you’ll return? The right or wrong questions to ask? It’s all a matter of timing— the who and what of our when-ness. The birds find their own answers to these questions.

Simply living by codes we can’t quite figure out except to guess, really.

Evidence of some bluebird genius faith unmeasurable by us?—Or is it some sign of persistence?

All of the questions I never answered just moments ago have just begun again.

HOME FROM GUATEMALA (NO WALLS HERE)

I forgot all the imperfections when the wood thrush returned and the notes drifted through me it slung its song straight into my heart the harmony it made with itself hung onto heaven pierced my soul brought back love from a place I’d never known

\ LUV \

Love,
is the feathered
thing tundra swan
flying across full
moon’s cold light
wood thrush
singing deep
in redbud blushing
spring wing
of wandering owl
sweeping arctic white

Love,
is the wild place
windswept shore
where tide tosses
time cypress swamps
ink wet reflection
old field languishing
broom-sedge
burnishing gold
in autumn setting sun

Love,
is humid summer
lust crush
cicada’s humming
choir leaf’s first blush—
verdance to
vermilion warblers
wandering by guiding star.

FIELD MARK 25: DUM SPIRO SPERO

Any comfort reliably, infallibly yet comes in the sun resting westward and leaving light that stops my heart and makes it beat all the more rapidly at once.

Until such time as the sun ceases to set in the west or migrating birds no longer ply dark heaven following guiding stars, I hope. I watch. I breathe.

FIELD MARK 6: LOVE HANDLE
Handle any life in your hands as if it were your own. Feel the heart beating—small as it may be—and imagine it in your own chest: beating in syncopated time to become shared meter. That pulse, the breathing, is your rhythm. Your in’s and out’s: its in’s and out’s. Look close under whatever warty skin or soft fur or gaudy feathers and see self. Its being is your being. Be in that same skin for what moments it will allow. Then, when the convergence between you is sealed, release that wild soul to free roaming as you would desire of your own.

SOUND THINKING

..the ocean gives and takes by time and tide creates and destroys with each surge— lapping away at the edge of what we know.

saunter along the daily disaster dealt by the deep hoarding truth into

pockets holding shards of sunlight in a memory already full thinking

too much about what is maybe wanting what isn’t lacking a hiding hole

or a shell strong enough to see me through I exist exposed on some intertidal plain

live naked in between high water wishes and low tide wants

unbalanced on the shifting of should and should not

ON FINDING SWAMP RELIGION

There is forever here.

I had a universe to myself. Alone. No one else in my own image. Thank you rain.

They have theirs. I have mine. My gospel this morning: Nothing is as it was, Or will ever be Again. Others come to worship. Peace be done. Amen.

FIELD MARK 73: HOW TO JUST BE

Not being out; not wandering somewhere wild—seems sinful. There’s something wonderful I’m not witnessing.

Some bird or beast flies or creeps by as I stare into someone else’s expectational chasm. It’s an expanse I’m increasingly unwilling to span. A new sun warms in brilliant hues.

When that coming and going cycles absent my firsthand witness, I’m squandering time. If wildness is a wish then I’m rubbing the lamp hard for a million more wandering moments.

FIELD MARK 1: LOVE FOR A SONG

Love is desire doled out on the whippoorwill’s summer wanting. It is our craving for the meadowlark’s ringing song—our longing for spring’s greening from our sun-starved spirits down to our bare-toed roots. We seek the winding path and wander...

We want the wild soul, and a shadow-dwelling wood thrush heaps it on us in self-harmonizing sonata.

We revel in wildflower bloom—marvel in the migratory sojourns of birds dodging falling stars...

Wind and water—storm and surf—they can move us to other ends. Therein is the turn on. It’s the honey sweet seduction. Nature asks only that we notice—a sunrise here, a sunset there.

The surge, that overwhelming inexplicable thing in a swallow’s joyous flight or the dawning of new light that melds heart and head into sensual soul in that moment of truly seeing—that is love.

DEER WORSHIP
All I witness is worthy of worship. Wild things are not burdened with guilt or sin. It is prayer and meditation and godless pleas thrown as alms and ash into the autumn wind—it is a counseling couch with no limits on listening.

NINE RULES FOR THE BLACK BIRDER

1- Be prepared to be confused with the other black birder.

2-Carry your binoculars—and three forms of identification—at all times. forms of identification—at all times.

3-Nocturnal birding is a no-no.

7-Want to see the jaws of blue-blooded birders drop faster than a northern gannet into a shoal of shad? Tell them John James Audubon, the patron saint of American ornithology, had some black blood coursing through his veins. Old JJ’s mom was likely part Haitian.

8-You’re an endangered species—extinction looms. You know all the black birders like siblings and can count them on two hands. You’re afraid to have lunch with them all because a single catastrophe could wipe the species from the face of the earth. There’s talk and posturing about diversifying the hobby, but the money is not where the mouths are. People buy binoculars that would fund the economy of a small Caribbean island—where, coincidentally, lots of neotropical migratory birds winter, and where local people of color might contribute to their conservation if more birders cared about more than counting birds.

GROUP THINK: NEW NAMES FOR PLURAL BIRDS

A Consideration, Council or Congress of crows; call them anything but murderers, please. A Whir of hummingbirds A Riff (or Mood) of any bird that’s blue

A Thicket of sparrows A Mine of goldfinches

Melody of thrushes A Palette of painted buntings An Audacity of wrens— finding every crevice ever created and singing loudest about the fact.

A Tide of shorebirds— rising more than falling, wishful thinking on past abundance; knots, whimbrel, peeps, plovers, curlews darkening salt marsh skies.

A Wandering of warblers

An Inclusion of mixed migratory flocks, hopefully integrated by choice

Here in gratitude of everyone there ever was— Whatever the name. A Love of birds. My collective label.

GLOSSARY

Bird Worship-worthy, feather-bearing, winged beings, most of which fly. With abilities to sing in harmony with themselves, move by the millions in murmuration as a single entity and traverse hemispheres guided by stars, they are what humans would be if they could.

Dum Spiro Spero (L.) “While I breathe, I hope.” 1. Motto on the seal of my home state of South Carolina, which is much more admirable than being known for secession to preserve slavery. 2. What I, and most Black people, are thinking when being stopped by the police. See also George Floyd.

Field Mark A part of something that helps you know what the whole thing is. Cardinal beak thickness versus warbler beak thinness, dazzling feather color, a beautiful flute-ish song, waving a Confederate flag claiming, Heritage not Hate.

Murmuration The mesmerizing wavelike & fluid unified movement of a flock of birds or school of fish. If you say the word to yourself thirteen times out loud you will being to see what it means.

Salidago & Bidens (aka goldenrod & tickseed; sun-yellow, wild-flower) Fall beauties that become prettier with increased negligence and reckless abandon.

Wood thrush A brown-backed, spot-breasted & angelic bird-soul that can throw three self-harmonized notes into the spring air to seduce the unwary wanderer. They are the sirens of the forest. I love them.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's a tension here. This zoologist by training, conservationist by avocation, poet adjacently, writes fine poems, nothing at all to sneeze at, even mixing formats effectively and drawing you into his love of mode in something like "Sound Thinking" that I believe is a shoreline ode, "lapping away at what we know," as a morning's "sharing surf with sandpipers and turnstones | plundering plovers | treasuring things the abyss didn't want" returns us to the psychology, if planetside due south of Paumanok. Of course Lanham has Whitman well in mind, "the deep dispossessed | lie sea-strewn along the St. Helen strand | a hermit repossesses the foreclosure | scuttles away with the deal | tucks away in security dealt by death | sure in the uncertainty of each way, washes to and fro | sheltered | by some confidence I don't possess" since the speaker's "memory is already full | thinking too much about what is | . . . lacking a hiding hole | or a shell strong enough to see me through."

We see, through this shell of Lanham's thought, the hermit's thought of why the poem appeals. A gull arrives at the close of the ode, to laugh "at my indecision to just be." So Lanham makes his place for his aviary creatures, a scientist who has been caught out (more times than memory permits) "birding while black," so envies the sparrow their skittishness, as the sparrow recedes into a day's gray. The tension is that while this poet doesn't wear an MFA like greaves and breastplate, and stylistically can seem a walker, indeed, the work itself is expeditionary, and saunters quite nicely.

[Sandra Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been an admirer of ornithologist Drew Lanham since I heard his interview with the On Being podcast. He clearly loves birds and nature ... and his poetry and essays convey limitless love and esteem. In this collection, Sparrow Envy, he writes eloquently of the birds, their habitats, as well as the barriers sometimes encountered in being a too-rare black ornithologist. He loves the crows too much to call their gathering a “murder.” Prose poems and essays interspersed with stanza poems are truly poetic ... including several Field Marks (the record of a marking to distinguish features of a species of bird). His essay on “Nine Rules for the Black Birder” speaks, often with sarcasm, to the prejudice and suspicions black birders often face in endeavors of their work or hobby. In this collection, Lanham speaks love words to the birds, as in his language so lyrical in his poem “/Luv/” and the “Field Mark 1: Love for a Song.” In both conversation and in his writing, Dr. Lanham’s pure joy in his chosen field of study shines throughout in his exaltation of birds and their worlds. For all humankind’s careless choices in our charge of this planet, I feel a sense that the birds may outlive our foolishness.

♥️ “Considering Birds,” “On Timberdoodle Time,” “Migration,” “Nocturne,” “Field Mark 6: Love Handle,” “Field Mark 3: In Remembrance (Auto Obit),” “Compassing,” seaside with “Sound Thinking,” “On Finding Swamp Religion,” and his essay/list “How to Adore Birds”

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this poetry collection but was not enthralled by it. When I received this book, I was most excited by the prospect of reading pretty natural imagery - of which there was plenty. I loved his lyrical descriptions, his overt, unabashed love of birds and reverence for nature. I think the connections to the political world could have been more poetic, though. It is clear that even in his nature retreat, he is still thinking about (and of course has to think about) real-world politics and his identity as a Black man. So why was that just thrown in some places? I would have liked to see it more smoothly integrated in the poetry (I think it is well done in “Bohicket Road Ramble: Flash Fly Gentrify)

I think there was a similar problem with adding depth to his nature poetry. He would just stick in the connection to his feelings right at the end for some of them… I found this especially lame in the last stanza of “Hard Pan Life”. I only write this because I think that this would have taken the collection from good to great for me; I feel like a lot of the poems didn’t have that distinct poetry “Oh.”, that hit right to the chest that whirls you around and leaves you different when you open your eyes back up. Overall, I enjoyed reading all of them and will definitely go back to a couple or would bring it camping with me to enjoy in the presence of nature. Good collection.

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very brief chapbook really, but it does make a good impression. I orginally bought this book for my partner, who's also a black birder. I can't say for certain how much it will resonate with him or other black birders generally, but it definitely speaks to the longing, frustration and marginalisation that I've seen first hand comes from trying to establish yourself in this white, middle class, underfunded industry that is making no efforts to move from its reliance on volunteers or to engage unrepresented people.

Lanham is a birder first and a poet second. Some of his imagery and metaphor is a little bit cliche but to no more of an extent than most well published nature writers. It's interesting how most of his poetry has a British tone and style despite it being about American fauna and experiences. His poems really sing when they highlight the humanity that's brought out from observing nature. While '9 rules for the black birdwatcher' is one of his most striking poems, his other, more lyrical poetry shouldn't be underestimated or overshadowed by it either.

Overall, these poems contain soul and sincerity often missing from the middle class objectivity of non-fiction writing, or the patronisingly pastoral stereotypes of nature poetry.

[Neil Pasricha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professor J. Drew Lanham of Clemson University defines birds as “Worship-worthy, feather-bearing, winged beings, most of which fly. With abilities to sing in harmony with themselves, move by the millions in murmuration as a single entity and traverse hemispheres guided by stars, they are what humans would be if they could” and then defines birder as “Me.” A slim volume of bird poetry (like the title track Sparrow Envy) and little bits of artistic field guides around birding and nature, more generally. Playful tone throughout including the Appendices “Nine Rules for the Black Birder” and “New Names for Plural Birds” which opens with “A Hemorrhage of cardinals / red-staining the backyard / A Consideration, Council / or Congress of crows; / call them anything but murderers, please / A Whir of hummingbirds / A Riff (or Mood) of any bird that’s blue”. A great complement to his wonderful memoir The Home Place.

[Elizabeth Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sparrow Envy by J. Drew Lanham (Hub City Press 2021)
A hybrid jewel of poems and prose Field Marks, this “feel guide” to sparrows and wild things travels a range of species, both bird and human. His poems, like “On Finding Swamp Religion” and “\LUV\” , create luscious wording that charms, “where tide tosses time/cypress swamps ink wet reflection.” In “Bohicket Road Ramble” he slides into social commentary, the invasion of those who eat meat “kindly dead/delivered by the pound” and find his “middle-class-dead-deer-hauling ride” drives too slow. In “Octaroon Warbler” he cites a “human-chattel-possessing label” and suggests “can we not do better?”, then renames several species. Accomplished birder, Clemson professor, Edgefield native and 2022 MacArthur Fellow, Lanham brings an informed and thoughtful perspective, waxing on sparrows and other winged creatures and a life “searching for the hidden thing.”