[When The Hawk in the Rain was published] it was evident that there was a gifted new poet on the scene who was prepared to make strong, confident assertions about the importance of strong—even confused or blind—feeling. And not only assertions; for the poems were often simply like assaults, designed to provoke the reader into vigorous—and in this poet's view, it seemed, perfectly healthy—responses of scarcely rational dismay or anger. Lupercal was the title of Hughes's second book, but what it suggests about the character of that volume could equally well be applied to The Hawk in the Rain: Lupercalia was a Roman festival at which the priests struck women to make them fertile. (p. 134)

Many of the assaults and arguments in The Hawk in the Rain are marked by [an] aggressive exaggeration that it is difficult after the first impact to take seriously...