E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

The major English poet Geoffrey Hill is well-known for arguing that confessional poems of the quotidian fail to reach the immense heights of more imaginative, less-self-centred, poetry. From this position (which I have simplified for the sake of debate) then follows a dismissal of nearly all the poets, poems and poetry since 1945, including Larkin's, Plath's, Lowell's , etc. It is good for great poets to have their own guiding lights, their own poetics, but is not so good for other readers and poets to believe them when they claim theirs is the chosen path.  Poets do not make good messiahs. The best thing that poets give us (usually) is their poetry, not their criticism - and we are best to go by that.  Empson and Jarrell may be the exceptions here. In the case of Hill, it is hard to locate his idea of the imagination in his work, which is almost never quite as grandly imaginative in the way that say Milton 's was.  Hill is a rhetorical poet more like Pope...

Splendid news.  England's finest living poet, Geoffrey Hill , has been elected the new Professor of Poetry for Oxford.  This practically papal position de facto renders Hill the most-esteemed elder figure of a crowded field, that stretches down its influence, to such "modern classics" as Fenton and Motion .  In short, he is confirmed as what he has been, in all but name, for years in the UK - part of the triumvirate of living greats of English, along with Walcott and Heaney - and, by extension, Ashbery , if one wants to include American poets.  Hill is grander than all these, openly wrestling with religion, politics, and ideas, in a more rhetorically ornate and high manner - the Miltonic tradition.  He is therefore a suitable follower-on from Ricks .  A note on Michael Horovitz : it is a pity he received so few votes (though over 300 is not an embarrassment); he would, if Hill had not been running, a good choice himself - and he ran a spirited and enjo...

Just saw this at Carrie Etter's blog. Good to see Hill in the running .