A Treatise of Civil Power By Geoffrey Hill

I read this mostly because the back cover said “England’s best hope for the Noble Prize”–which France won this year. Having read this I really understand why.

There is some great stuff in this book, but mostly it is a collection of reading notes, obituaries, and other wet ink writing that might work in monthlies, but does not hold up that well between the covers. A lot of it is very hyper connected and the general voice is consistent throughout the work. My most favorite piece is likely:

On Looking Through 50 Jahre im Bild: Bundersrepublik Deutschland

It is not a matter of justice. Justice is in another world.
Or of injustice even; that is beside the point, or almost.
Nor evne of the continuity of hirelings, the resourceful;
those who are obese — the excellent ehads of hair —
the beautiful or plain wives, secretaries and translators.
The riots and deomstartions that now appear
like interludes, masques, or pageants, or students; rags;
the police water-cannon: yuou look for the film’s director
but cannot find him. There is the captioned Wall;
there the Reichstag, the Brandenburger Tor
variously refurbished, with and without wire;
there’s Willy Brandt kneeling at the Ghetto Memorial
on his visit to Warswa, December of Nineteen Seventy:
I did what people do when words fail them.

which is much more political then the majority of the work, despite the title and some good notes on Blake.

I liked this book, but could use more of the longer pieces–in fact, a book length poem from Hill would be fantastic.