Point of View

“Hurt Hawks” is written from the third-person omniscient point of view. It is narrated by an unnamed speaker who is most likely Robinson Jeffers who wrote the poem after he and his young son cared for an injured hawk. Readers cannot forget that there is a speaker, but he keeps himself out of the imagery and allows readers to connect with the hawk and his plight.

The point of view is significant because it allows Jeffers to impart the poem with genuine empathy for the hawk who has been reduced in dignity and stature since suffering the broken wing. The hawk previously delighted in flitting throughout the sky, hunting and surveying, but now finds himself confined to the structure of the land and feels shame at his broken wing trailing “like a banner in defeat, / No more to use the sky forever” (2-3). We can...