Geoffrey Hill

Hello, all. Lewis here.

I had some thoughts on the presence of the poet in some of Geoffrey Hill's work. 'September Song' is an elegy for someone a day younger than the poet; by making the poem both for and about another person, Hill is able to retreat into his role as omnipotent arbitrator, present only in his choosing what "is plenty [...and what] is more than enough" (l. 14) in his construction of the poem. Though Hill has written an "elegy for [him]self" (l. 9), his role is lessened by the "many routine cries" (l. 7) of the death camps.

In a similar way, 'The Guardians' has Hill categorising other human beings as "The young" (l. 1) and "The old" (l. 5), but he does not ally himself with either group. He projects this sparseness of presence onto the events of the poem, rooting the action solely in the "soft aftershocks of calm" (l. 10).