English Literature: notes for Poetry_ Hawk Roosting_Ted Hughes_2009-2010_Ms I Poon

notes for Teachers

1 2
Hawk Roosting

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream3 (echo line 18)
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy4and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.
My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation5
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry6in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -
1 arrogant; his dream is realistic: all about
‘killing’ and ‘eating’, a natural born killer
born with ‘weapons’ perfect for killing
4 intrinsic abilities to kill and hunt, even
in sleep
even the nature is made for him, for his
convenience, high trees, air, sun’s ray
8 Personification: surface of the earth; like
a king
Locked: strong feet, grip the bark on the
branch, watching over his territory,
inspecting and in control of everything
12 as if it is the divine ruler of the world
He is superior to the earth (8), the master
of nature/the universe and in control
of it; everything/the world
revolves at his command
16

The allotment7of death.

For the one path of my flight is direct Whenever he flies, he has one purpose in
Through the bones of the living. mind/life i.e. to kill
No arguments assert my right: 20 No one can stop me from doing so/deny it

The sun is behind me. He thinks he is immortal; he is in control

Nothing has changed since I began. of everything. However, the hawk’s eye
My eye has permitted no change. symbolizes the lack of vision. It is too
I am going to keep things like this. 24 arrogant to realize that he lives
in a changing world & he is not the king
Ted Hughes

Meanings:
1. Hawk: bird of prey, violent and aggressive
2. Roosting: resting on a perch
3. falsifying dream: dream that is imaginary and fantastic
4. buoyancy: ability to float
5. Creation: all created things.
6. sophistry: the appearance of a hawk does not deceive us. What we see is what we get. It is
definitely a ‘killing machine’ and it does not hide his killing ability, but rather shows it off proudly to
the world.
7. allotment: the official handing out of something. In this case, the hawk is claiming that he has been
officially appointed by God to hand out death to all creatures.

Questions for Discussion:

1. How does the poet feels about the hawk?
2. Is this poem satirical? If so, what is the poet satirizing?
 Teacher’s notes:
 The Title together with the word ‘Inaction’ in line 2 imply latent violence, the hawk is ready
to ‘kill’
 Characteristics/nature of the hawk:
 Arrogance: 21 Pronouns, stanza 2, stanza 3, line 13, line 20, stanza 6
 Predatory (killing other animals for food); a killing machine, strong and powerful,
ruthless/cruel, and violent: stanza 1, line 9, stanza 4, stanza 5
 Line 1: the use of 21 personal pronouns "I" and "me", possessive adjective "my" and the
possessive pronoun "mine" show the Hawk’s superiority over other creatures; also
suggests its self-centeredness, like that of a dictator.
 Line 3: What is between his hooked head and hooked feet? The creature that he has just
killed/captured i.e. the prey
 Line 4: his only purpose in life is to hunt, kill—”tearing off heads"(17-19) and to eat. Even
when he is sleeping, he dreams of killing and eating, rehearsing this action over and over in
his dreams so that he reaches perfection in his art.
 Line 5: The high trees allow the hawk to sit unnoticed, he can then dive down with little effort
and capture his prey
 Lines 6 & 7: the hawk can lock its wings and float on the air to watch the ground below for
its prey. If the sun is high in the sky, it will hide the hawk as the prey will be blinded by the
rays of the sun and will not see the hawk hovering in the sky above.
 Lines 10 & 11: the hawk sees himself as the end point of evolution. The centre of the
universe. Creation has now been given to him to control.
 Line 13: The dash mark causes the reader to slow down while reading and it helps imagine
the hawk's slow flight.