Geoffrey Hill wrote dense, historically layered poetry about language, religion, politics and the moral difficulty of representing the past. Mercian Hymns combines the Anglo-Saxon king Offa with memories of Hill's own Midlands childhood in short prose-poem sections where historical and personal time overlap. The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy and later books draw on European history, theology and literary tradition through compressed argument and difficult allusion. Hill's poems frequently question their own rhetoric, especially when approaching violence, national identity or public memory. His work is intellectually demanding, sonically exact and resistant to quick paraphrase, with unusual words and historical references carrying substantial weight. It fits late modernist poetry, historical poetry and religious verse, particularly for readers of T. S. Eliot or David Jones who are prepared to follow dense networks of cultural reference. Read more Less
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