Why The Wee Sparrow?

The logo for The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press is a beautiful watercolour of a House Sparrow, painted by Claire´s talented father, Colin Thom. Colin, originally from Glasgow, is an artist and retired architect and is our illustrator and watercolourist.

So why the wee sparrow?

At the start of the first Covid 19 lockdown in 2020, Claire was sitting alone in her apartment in Cádiz, Spain, staring out of the window and contemplating the pandemic. She was also trying to get her head around teaching online, which was to be the way of things for the remaining months of that academic year. The world was suddenly upside down and back to front and the news was story after story of suffering and loss. The city of Cádiz was not its usual hive of activity but was now silent, save the occasional sirens whizzing up the main avenue.

But floating in the window came another noise...the cheerful chirp of a sparrow from the roof terrace. Later that day, quite by chance, Claire came upon this poem by the late, great American poet, Emily Dickinson -

Hope Is The Thing With Feathers

By Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.