Song of a Reformed Headhunter

It is nearly impossible to summarize True Friendship: Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht, and Robert Lowell Under the Sign of Eliot and Pound.  Its method is one of accretion, of numerous small verbal echoes that may not appear much on their own, but add up to a profound and persuasive thesis. In this Ricks follows, as he acknowledges, Eliot whose critical idea it is. In this also Ricks follows, I think, the poets' working method, which lives on a predecessor's words and in turn gives life to them. Auden is right when he wrote that Ricks is the kind of critic every poet dreams of having. Intellectually searching, Ricks does not propound an overarching theory of influence, in the manner of Harold Bloom. He is not after grand synthesis but quivering alertness. And so he shows that Geoffrey Hill is more generous and sympathetic in his poetry than in his prose towards Eliot. Ricks's defense of Eliot's late poetry against Hill's attack is thrilling to read. In the second of ...

I read Anthony Hecht's poem "To L. E. Sissman, 1928-1976" week before last (in his Collected Later Poems, a magisterial, in both senses of the word, volume) without knowing who the dead dedicatee is, and promptly forgot the name though not the poem. On a trip to the local secondhand bookstore here in Brooklyn Heights, I picked up Sissman's first volume of poems, Dying: An Introduction , because of its beguiling use of meter. After reading and enjoying most of it, I was surprised to find the same name topping Hecht's poem to which I returned, Later . Here's a section showing how Hecht praises Sissman's poetry: Dear friend, whose poetry of Brooklyn flats And poker sharps broacasts the tin pan truths Of all our yesterdays, speaks to our youths In praise of both Wallers, Edmund and Fats, And will be ringing in some distant ear Whem the Mod-est, last immodesty fatigues, All Happenings have happened, the Little Leagues Of Pop and pop-fly poets disappear To join ...