y outset, it is clear that the hawk is in control. The poem begins assertively with the pronoun I. The hawk is so secure in his position that he is able to announce the fact that he is resting, inaction, with his eyes closed. There is no falsifying dream - he has nothing to hide - between his hooked head and hooked feet. The repetition of hooked puts the reader on guard - it sounds …showed first 75 words of 468 total…

…showed last 75 words of 468 total…Hughes' hawk is striking - using virtually the same basic image, the two poets paint drastically differing pictures which are, nonetheless, no less true for being worlds apart in their truth. thomas. PS. Hughes died last year at the age of 68, soon after publishing 'The Birthday Letters', a deeply moving recollection of his troubled marriage with the equally celebrated poet Sylvia Plath (who committed suicide). His successor as Poet Laureate has not yet been announced.