The New Criterion

The Sheldonian Theatre, built from 1664 to 1668 to Christopher Wren’s design—his very first, as it happens—felt glacial on the dank evening of February 1 of this year when Geoffrey Hill appeared there to read from his poems. The theater on Oxford’s Broad Street accommodates some 800 people, and the main hall and most of the galleries filled almost as soon as the tall doors swung open. This was a bustling, excited, voluble crowd of expectant listeners and the high dome of the theater echoed with their hubbub. I had come up from London with my friend, the poet and essayist Marius Kociejowski, for the purpose of hearing Hill give what his rather imposing website described as “a major reading.” Though I’ve admired Hill’s poetry for over thirty years and have read each of his twelve collections as they’ve appeared—sometimes with bafflement but always with delight—I had never seen him i ...

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