Blog #14: Paired Poems Group Presentation

In the poems “Hawk Roosting” (Ted Hughes) and “Golden Retrievals” (Mark Doty), are paired together present contrasting views of the world through the embodiment of animal view poetry. Either through the praising the bird, its determination, power and beauty or the friendliness and loyalty of a golden retriever, the authors utilize a third party Both pomes clearly represent their separate worlds through diction, figurative language, and tone. Maty Doty’s “Golden Retrievals”, presents the subject to the poem, the dog, as a playful, joyous creature with a quick paced poem involving the game of fetch. “Catch? I don’t think so, bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s--.” The structure of the poem being in three stanzas, contrasting again the latter poem, proves to be a tool to show the dog’s short attentiveness. Also, the diction throughout is not difficult to comprehend and is suitable for the dog’s personality portrayed in the poem. Though this is but one example it does a significant job of highlighting the carefree spirit of the animal at hand, which directly contrasts the “Hawk roosting” poem’s attitude of power and cruelty. “My work: to unsnare time’s warp, retrieving my haze-headed friend, you.” Here the dog tells of how his job in his life is to get his “friend”, presumably his owner, out of the fix of always thinking of tomorrow. The dog even states earlier in the poem, “tomorrow, is that what you call?” Here the poet through his animal- eye view of the world uses the dog to portray that society needs to break free sometimes of our fix on the future and live in the present and enjoy our time on Earth. The dog also presents the argument that we a society are always trying to fix our past mistakes, “And you? Either you’re sunk in the past, thinking of what you never can bring back.” The poet conveys his plea to live now and not in the past or future through the dog-speaker in the poem. In “Hawk Roosting” by Ted Hughes, the hawk or speaker of the poem takes on a darker sinister tone, often making references to death, power and cruelty. “My manners of tearing of heads. The allotment of death. This can be coinciding with how the hawk is viewed as more majestic and powerful creature than a dog may be. Adding to this is the notion that the hawk owns the world, “I kill where I please because it is all mine.” Portraying the hawk this way adds to the fact that he is a powerful and cruel master of the world beneath him. Another concept involved in adding an air of sophistication to the hawk is the uniformity of the stanzas in the poem. Each stanza contains four lines.