Goshawk Poems

These verses are from goshawk observations since 1955; my first experiences of the bird in the wild overseas—anecdotes of camp life, falconers, birds and probable escaped or released individually, few enough anyway, are considered largely irrelevant in this naturalist’s view. Few publications, bar the 1995 Goshawk Lives booklet, have been used; most of this edition is new. I have used almost entirely notes made at the time, in now well over 500 notepads, and diaries and letters; memory illumines only a narrow broken trail. (Colin Simms)

'Colin Simms, whose published nature writings of his own observations go back to 1950; a continuous growing stream of disciplined excellence, a celebration especially of North country nature but also of other Northern Hemisphere work he had done most years since 1955; especially since 1973. His first publication was in verse; his preferred medium, which may explain how little-known he is as yet; his verse is recognised by the best authorities anywhere now.'  — Derek Lees-Smith (1980)

'Goshawk Lives is masterly in its kinaesthetic language—all senses interactive as they are in our lives, especially when freed from some of the man-made enclosures or the settlement. It is the language for the basis of knowledge, and the usage is happily free from nostalgia, the blight of the wordsworthian. The poetry exhilarates in its invitation to participate in the verbal presentation of so much care for fact, and care for the maintenance of fact. But this care includes meanings for relationships between 'protection', 'fair game' and 'law' as they radiate into everything human life does.' — Eric Mottram (1995)