> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Weekend Words: Birds
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/weekend-words-birds/
- Published: 2013-03-24T14:00:34.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:35:34.000Z
- Description: In its previous installment, Weekend Words had bees on its mind; now the birds have asked for equal time.
- Author: Weekend Editors
- Tags: Opinion, Weekend, Weekend Words, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

![Giovanni da Udine, "Study of a Parrot and Other Birds" (1515-20). Red chalk and gouache, pen and brown ink, black chalk, 300 x 219 mm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. (Image via Web Gallery of Art) ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2013/03/birds-1.jpg)

Giovanni da Udine, “Study of a Parrot and Other Birds” (1515–20). Red chalk and gouache, pen and brown ink, black chalk, 300 x 219 mm. Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. (Image via Web Gallery of Art) (Click to enlarge)

In its previous installment, Weekend Words had bees on its mind; now the birds have asked for equal time:

> “Ev’ry little raven at the birdman’s stand  
> Talkin’ ’bout the lozzapoppin’ — it was grand  
> They started goin’ steady and bless my soul  
> Out popped the buzzard and the oriole.  
>  
> “He rocks in the treetop all day long  
> Hoppin’ and a-boppin’ and a-singin’ his song  
> All the little birds on Jaybird Street  
> Love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet.”  
>  
> **—Leon Renè, from “Rockin’ Robin”**

> “Did St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.”  
>  
> **—Rebecca West**

> “Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind — listen to the birds. And don’t hate nobody.”  
>  
> **—Eubie Blake**

> “Everything that’s realistic has some sort of ugliness in it. Even a flower is ugly when it wilts, a bird when it seeks its prey.”  
>  
> **—Sharon Tate**

> “I was raised in South Carolina; I wasn’t aware of any art in South Carolina. There was a minor museum in Charleston, which had nothing of interest in it. It showed local artists, paintings of birds.”  
>  
> **—Jasper Johns**

> “A gold-feathered bird  
> Sings in the palm, without human meaning,  
> Without human feeling, a foreign song.”  
>  
> **—Wallace Stevens, from “On Mere Being”**

> “What a kid I got. I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife.”  
>  
> **—Rodney Dangerfield**