Excruciatingly comic, Speech! Speech! is also that rarest of things: a tour de force that is tragic. As imperious as the King, forever issuing commands, and as perilously ingenious in rejoinder as the Fool, the voices of Geoffrey Hill vie to outjest each other -- outrage each other -- yet also to soothe implacable injuries. Whose injuries, exactly? To some degree (third degree), the poet's own -- but not his alone, yours too, gentle reader. In its ferocity and love, in its glimpses of timeless beauty, even in the praises it ...
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Excruciatingly comic, Speech! Speech! is also that rarest of things: a tour de force that is tragic. As imperious as the King, forever issuing commands, and as perilously ingenious in rejoinder as the Fool, the voices of Geoffrey Hill vie to outjest each other -- outrage each other -- yet also to soothe implacable injuries. Whose injuries, exactly? To some degree (third degree), the poet's own -- but not his alone, yours too, gentle reader. In its ferocity and love, in its glimpses of timeless beauty, even in the praises it bestows (upon the savage farce of Daumier, or the dear measure of Hoist, or the clear-eyed endurance of Balzac), it is a supreme "how to" book. How to be (or at least how to begin the process of being) honest. In speech, for a start. With a poem for each of the 120 days of Sodom, it may go too far -- but then, as T.S. Eliot said, it is only by going too far that you find out how far you can go. This is History (and yet how different from Robert Lowell's unrolling} and these are Dream Songs (and as nightmarishly just as John Berryman's visions). Not self-expression, but self-explosion. A challenge to ali concerned.
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Seller's Description:
First Edition. Hardback. Dust Jacket. 8vo. Original publisher's black cloth over red papered boards, lettered silver at the spine. ISBN: 1582430985 Pages: 80 Fine in fine dust jacket.
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Seller's Description:
Near Fine. Book Not ex-lib. Softcover in black wraps with orange-red tinted Daumier artwork to front, 8vo. 60pp. + note on author. Near Fine. Light overall curl toward fore edges of wraps with additional mild wear at tips of corners. Else clean, square and unmarked with bright titles and figure to wraps.
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Seller's Description:
Like New. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall; Stated First Edition (no print line presumed first), very tight clean and unmarked, NO age toning, boards look new and undamaged, dust jacket NOT price-clipped, dj shows a tiny puncture on front near spine, dj shows ordinary mild shelf and edge wear, Near Fine/Good Plus overall condition.
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Seller's Description:
Like New in Like New jacket. Size: 8x5x0; A nice hardcover with a red dust jacket, a tight binding and an unmarked text. From a private smoke free collection. Shipping within 24 hours, tracking number and delivery Confirmation.
