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The Day Is Now Far Spent

From the April 2021 Print Edition

I saw the buckling of Notre Dame’s spireAnd then its swift fall into raging fireAs though the West had fallen all at once—As though heretics had toppled the Cross. Such swirling smoke as the oak beams collapsed,And all the countless treasures of the pastWere lost forever—all our . . . . Continue Reading »

Geoffrey Hill, Prodigal

From the Aug/Sept 2018 Print Edition

Among poets writing in English during the last forty years, Geoffrey Hill was sometimes named the greatest one alive, but he was always named the most difficult one to read. He had come to live and teach in America in the 1980s, along with a brilliant group which included Paul Muldoon at . . . . Continue Reading »

Caribbean Rhapsode

From the Aug/Sept 2017 Print Edition

The great poet of the Caribbean, Derek Walcott, passed away at home on his native island of St. Lucia on March 17. It is hard to summarize his achievement. He wrote more than twenty books of poetry, most notably Omeros (1990), which transplants the Trojan War to the Caribbean fishing world . . . . Continue Reading »

Old Possum in Full Glory

From the November 2016 Print Edition

The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition, Vols. 1–4edited by ronald schuchard et al.johns hopkins, 3,728 pagesWith four of a projected eight volumes of The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot now available in an online edition, alongside a two-volume edition of Eliot’s poems finally . . . . Continue Reading »