Review of Oxford poet Paul Surman’s poem ‘Sparrowhawk’

Review of Oxford poet Paul Surman’s poem ‘Sparrowhawk’ I request the readers to read the poem from the link https://www.acumen-poetry.co.uk/paul-surman-5/ and then only my review. Thanks. Can a poem be written for a target audience? Yes and No. Yes because a misadventure is certainly one of creators’ freedoms. No in the sense this is alien to the creative process in carving out a poem. Often a poet’s whole new visualization gives birth to a poem. Nevertheless, sometimes an ordinary scene triggers within a poet a macro vision and a beautiful transition from a micro scene to a macro phenomenon manifests itself in the form of a poem. Sighting a Sparrowhawk outside his window leads to a chain of thoughts within the poet. He thinks of its preys, the smaller birds and how they vanished from cities due to the pollution and deforestation. In the following stanzas which are the last two the poem’s transit to the macro phenomenon of ecological imbalance. Now it seems, life is hunting you, your regal plumage hangs low and loose, as if you’ve lost a battle, and after a rout are on the run. Your shape and colour of surprise will no longer drop from the skies, feather and claw, a precise swoop, the sudden weightlessness of death. The question before the reader now is whether to treat as one more reminder and find just a different version the oft repeated cry to save environment, or to appreciate the meticulous effort by the poet in a confluence of art and activism. The widening ecological imbalance disturbs the poet so much, that an ordinary scene of a Sparrowhawk landing on a fence and taking off brings out a poem. The expression ‘weightlessness of death’ is figurative and sharp.