J. Drew Lanham’s Sparrow Envy

BirdNote^®
J. Drew Lanham’s Sparrow Envy
Written by Mark Bramhill

Mark Bramhill: This is BirdNote. I’m Mark Bramhill.

It’s National Poetry Month in the US, and each year we like to celebrate by sharing our favorite contemporary writers’ work about birds. Ornithologist and poet J. Drew Lanham often writes about racial justice, and his experience as a Black man in the outdoors. Like, when he was out birding…

J. Drew Lanham: [And] this racist man, he had threatened me in this place where I traditionally looked for White-crowned Sparrows. So I was looking for them in this other space that was, you know, a lot of people would pass by and not look at. And, I didn’t find White-crowned Sparrows, but I was looking at Swamp Sparrows, and a Lincoln’s Sparrow.

          [Lincoln’s Sparrow song]

In the face of injustice, Drew has found that joy can be a powerful act of resistance. And so, watching these sparrows in habitat that many people would overlook, inspired a poem celebrating these ‘Little Brown Birds’:

J. Drew Lanham: 

Sparrow Envy

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

          [Lincoln’s Sparrow song]

Mark Bramhill: I asked Drew, were he a sparrow, what species would he be?

J. Drew Lanham:  Oh, wow… I’d be the skulky-est Sparrow. I’m thinking a Henslow’s or a LeConte’s… or a Fox Sparrow.

          [Fox Sparrow song]

Fox Sparrows are pretty introverted. They don’t mind speaking up, but you hardly ever see ‘em. And then they make a decision. They’re like, ‘oh, I’ve been in this patch for a couple of weeks, ‘Okay, I’m finally gonna show myself.’ And there it is, right?

          [Fox Sparrow song]

And the Fox Sparrow is just, I mean… it’s almost a thrush, but it’s still a sparrow. And so it’s code switching a little bit, I think.

          [Fox Sparrow song]

If I had to give Fox Sparrows a name, I’d call ‘em ‘Code-switching Sparrows’. And so I feel like that’s kind of true to who I kind of have to be in the world.

Mark Bramhill: Want to hear more poetry about birds? Check out our new, hour-long special Words in Flight. You can find it on our website, BirdNote.org. I’m Mark Bramhill.

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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Lincoln's Sparrow ML100868 and Fox Sparrow ML539750 recorded by Wil Hershberger. 
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2026 BirdNote April 2026         Narrator: Mark Bramhill

ID# LanhamJD-02-2026-04-27    LanhamJD-02