[New-Poetry] Geoffrey Hill Wins Truman Capote AwardforLiteraryCriticism

[David Bircumshaw]

that really +sounds+ Peter Porter-ish, Rob, but I can't identify it either.


David Bircumshaw
Website: http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
To: "NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views" 
<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 2:40 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Geoffrey Hill Wins Truman Capote 
AwardforLiteraryCriticism


> <<
> Isn't it:  "Finally we are condemned by our lack of talent"?
> ...
> Judy
>>>
>
> Ouch!!!
>
> I thought this would be easy, but google is silent.
>
> I *thought the line was from Peter Porter, either from a poem in _The Cost 
> of Seriousness_ or (more likely) _Englsih Subtitles_, but I can't find it, 
> either Judy's or my version, in either volume.
>
> Perhaps I made it up, but this strikes me as unlikely.
>
> Anyone -- the Birk? -- recognise it?
>
> Robin
>
> ****************************
>
> 2009/4/18 Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
>
> But I am curious how many at New-Poetry think Heaney is the most 
> "consequent poet of the age," and what Establishment Genius is for those 
> who don't think Heaney is.
>
> --Bob
>
>
> I'm inclined to agree with Bob on this one -- Heaney is substantial but 
> perhaps not entirely consequent, whatever that means.
>
> Though it's easy to see why he's so liked in America, and here -- the Last 
> of the Georgians, though America didn't have a Georgian *Movement, only 
> Robert Frost.  (The Southern Agrarians weren't quite the same.)
>
> For all of me, I could lose most of Heaney except _North_, where I think 
> he peaks.  That's the book of Heaney's that I come back to.
>
> Geoffrey Hill is another matter.  Though whether even Hill, latest of the 
> Metaphysicals, is doing much more than William Empson once did ...
>
> Perhaps the Hundred Year Rule will retrospectively define J.H.Prynne as 
> the Central UK Poet Of Our Time.  It took long enough for Blake and Emily 
> Dickinson to be even recognised, after all, though both were unusual in 
> that respect.
>
> All three (Heaney, Hill, and Prynne) are "necessary"?  (Whatever *that 
> means.)
>
> Of course, one could write an Alternate History of Nineteenth Century 
> English Poetry that would elevate Clough and Edward Lear, and lead to 
> Stevie Smith, but that didn't happen, much as W.H.Auden tried to make it 
> so, both by precept [The Oxford book of Light Verse] and practice.
>
> Of all sad words of tongue and pen ... -- SBT.
>
>      "Finally we are defined by our lack of talent."
>
> Robin
>
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