The Book of Baruch can feel indigestibly disagreeable, especially once it goes beyond the dazzling opening poems on London in the Blitz. But the loose rhymes that run through its end-stopped lines travel like cracks along a whip, and these are what I read it for..
i once introduced Geoffrey Hill at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. He seemed at first an odd combination of dour and drill —. a sourpuss with a sense of humor. But afterwards, in the green room, I told him that when I was reading about in order to give a reasonably intelligent introduction, I discovered that he and I had something personal in common. “Oh yeah, what’s that?” “We’re both the sons of policemen.”
“Really?” We started exchanging stories and when we went our separate ways, he turned to me and said, with a twinkle in his eye, “It really is a brotherhood, isn’t it?”
dour and droll?
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