This poem is taken from PN Review 117, Volume 24 Number 1, September - October 1997.
The Starling's ComplaintLife, they say, 's a battlefield; and I, for one, don't doubt it.
From every garden in the land my kind and I are routed,
Even by ornithologists who lower their field-glasses
When we come into focus. Crowd of solemn, lunch-packed asses!
There are birds that people write about and birds that they
throw sand at:
Just like the Manichean split between the vole and land-rat.
It's fashion simply; that is all. That's simply all there's to it,
Like cultivating liking for a toadstool or a blewit.
Look in the book: my wing's magentaish - cf. the pigeon.
My feather is as ink-black as the blackbird's. Yet the widgeon-
Watcher growls when I approach, and then goes mad about a peewit.
What's so great about the nightingale? I'm sorry, I can't see it.
It's like writing on Piers Plowman or on Hoccleve or Duns Scotus,
Or translating medieval verse and signing it Ignotus,
Which should surely win us standing or acceptance with the best of them.
...
The page you have requested is restricted to subscribers only. Please enter your username and password and click on 'Continue'.
If you have forgotten your username and password, please enter the email address you used when you joined. Your login details will then be emailed to the address specified.
If you are not a subscriber and would like to enjoy the 286 issues containing over 11,500 poems, articles, reports, interviews and reviews, why not subscribe to the website today?
If you have forgotten your username and password, please enter the email address you used when you joined. Your login details will then be emailed to the address specified.
If you are not a subscriber and would like to enjoy the 286 issues containing over 11,500 poems, articles, reports, interviews and reviews, why not subscribe to the website today?