Still, Citizen Sparrow
by Richard Wilbur
- 1 Members Following
Follow a topic to see new activity, such as homework help questions and answers, in your personal feed on the homepage.
At a glance:
- Author: Richard Wilbur
- First Published: 1950
- Type of Poem: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Nature, Death or dying, Flight, Bible, biblical imagery, or biblical symbolism, Birds, Floods
The Poem
Like many other poems in English, some of them quite famous, Richard Wilbur’s “Still, Citizen Sparrow” takes as its subject, at least partially, a bird—in this case, a vulture. It does so, however, by addressing itself to another bird, a sparrow.
The use of the opening word, “Still,” suggests that the reader is entering the poem at a point where the speaker has already been talking to the sparrow, in a way presumably sympathetic to that bird’s belief that the vulture is an “unnatural” creature. This negative characterization is undoubtedly...
(The entire page is 1735 words.)
Want to read the whole thing?
Subscribe now to read the rest of this article. Plus, get access to:
- 30,000+ literature study guides
- Critical essays on more than 30,000 works of literature from Salem on Literature (exclusive to eNotes)
- An unparalleled literary criticism section. 40,000 full-length or excerpted essays.
- Content from leading academic publishers, all easily citable with our "Cite this page" button.
- 100% satisfaction guarantee READ MORE
