Poetry gets to be the poetry of life by successfully becoming first the poetry of poetry.

Poetry gets to be the poetry of life by successfully becoming first the poetry of poetry.

Geoffrey Hill may be the strongest and most original English poet of the second half of our fading century, although his work is by no means either easy or very popular. Dense, intricate, exceedingly compact, his poetry has always had great visionary force.

We speak of memorizing as getting something 'by heart,' which really means 'by head.' But getting a poem or prose passage truly 'by heart' implies getting it by mind and memory and understanding and delight.

A long project is like a secret houseguest, hidden in your study, waiting to be fed and visited.