• Jun 6
    • 1 min read

The Great Sparrow Campaign


Inked on hand scrolls like blossom we sparrows

sang of the Song dynasty. Spry, anxious,

we chanced around the feet of Ito Rojo

who captured our innocence. But art is


decadent and false. Now, from Nanyang

the Girls’ Rifle Team take aim, the peasants

rattle ladles against pots and pans.

From open parks and vast plains the word is sent.


To Mao Zedong we are a public scourge,

the pestilence of capital. In flight

we die. What art will bring us from the purge:

Wintry sparrows fleeing the fields at night.



by Gregor Addison

Recent Posts

See All

Our sycamore has posted old news to the ground, though other trees have still a few bright things to say. What happened to my father’s letters? Early birds shifting between branches brought his hand

Some poets wear loss like an honour, shine line and syntax until, bright, it stars the dark. Why write? Why use up in words the shared nights slurring stories until late? What is this, then, a casket

Son, today when I stare at my cupped hands I remember how as a calf she suckled my fingers; that sticky trickle of her rough tongue, how she would follow me around the pen. Later as a heifer, the ener