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Hedge Sparrows

Richard Price

You don’t see many hedges these days, and the hedges you do see they’re not that thorny, it’s a shame, and when I say a hedge I’m not talking about a row of twigs between two lines of rusty barbed wire, or more likely just a big prairie where there were whole cities of hedges not fifty years ago, a big desert more like, and I mean thick hedges, with trees nearby for a bit of shade and a field not a road not too far off so you can nip out for an insect or two when you or the youngsters feel like a snack, a whole hedgerow system, as it says in the book, and seven out of ten sparrows say the same, and that’s an underestimate, we want a place you can feel safe in again, we’re social animals, we want our social life back, and the sooner the better, because in a good hedge you can always talk things over, make decisions, have a laugh if you want to, sing, even with a voice like mine!


Richard Price

from Lucky Day (Manchester: Carcanet, 2005)

Reproduced by kind permission of the author and publisher.

Tags:

birds ecology farming memory National Poetry Day 2014 prose poems rewilding

About this poem

This poem, representing Great Britain, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

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Learning Resources

SQA Key: National 5        Higher
  • Hedge Sparrows by Richard Price

    Classroom resource for the poem Hedge Sparrows by Richard Price. Activities in this resource are aimed at pupils in upper primary school (P5–P7).
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Richard Priceb.1966

Richard Price is a poet who moves comfortably between the lyrical and the avant-garde. He was an influential figure in a literary movement which he named: Informationist poetry.
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