Obituary: Geoffrey Hill
Geoffrey Hill, an English poet, died on June 30th, aged 84
IT WAS, he said, like falling in love. When Geoffrey Hill was ten years old he was given a Victorian anthology of English poetry, an award to mark his punctilious attendance at the Sunday school of his local church. It was filled with the kind of high-flown, sentimental stuff he would later scorn. But for the child of a village policeman who had left school at 13, the poetry of past lives suddenly seemed a revelation—and led to his eventual vocation.
This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “Obituary: Geoffrey Hill”
Obituary July 30th 2016
From the July 30th 2016 edition
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