A Hill by Anthony Hecht
"A Hill" by Anthony Hecht is a contemplative poem that explores themes of memory, landscape, and emotional desolation. The work opens with a vivid depiction of a disheartening scene characterized by images of a superficial European marketplace, which evokes feelings of disgust through its references to "cheap landscapes" and "ugly religion." This initial setting serves as a stark contrast to the poem's later shift to the speaker's boyhood memories of a hill in Poughkeepsie, illustrating a profound emotional transition. Hecht employs seamless transitions in the narrative, reflecting the blending of past and present without distinct breaks in the text. The poem encapsulates the complexities of memory as the landscape becomes a powerful symbol of inner turmoil, conveying a sense of bleakness and despair. Hecht’s work ultimately invites readers to engage with the interplay between physical spaces and the emotional landscapes they evoke, highlighting the ways in which our surroundings can mirror our inner experiences. This intricate layering of imagery and emotion makes "A Hill" a poignant reflection on the interplay between memory and identity.
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A Hill by Anthony Hecht
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1967 (collected in Collected Earlier Poems, 1990)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“A Hill” opens with a vision, described in a tone of disgust for what appears—through contrasting images and language—as a gaudy European garage sale, with its “cheap landscapes” and “ugly religion”—a spiteful mercantile Italy. The scene is then turned over, upended, as it is again later, and done without textual representation. That is, there is no break in the lines when the shift of memory occurs, which creates a seamless transition and simultaneous blending of the former, a place whose “noises suddenly stopped,” with the suddenness of a “cold, close to freezing” boyhood hill in Poughkeepsie. As Hecht later confirmed, landscape in “A Hill” (and other works) is an expression of the desolation of soul, the bleakness, the forlornness, assembling and conveying deep despair.
Bibliography
German, Norman. Anthony Hecht. New York: Peter Lang, 1989.
Lea, Sydney, ed. The Burdens of Formality: Essays on the Poetry of Anthony Hecht. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989.
Hoffman, Daniel. The Harvard Guide to Contemporary AmericanWriting. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979.
McClatchy, J. D. White Paper: On Contemporary Poetry. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
Perkins, David. A History of Modern Poetry: Modernism and After. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987.
Spiegelman, William. The Didactic Muse: Scenes of Instruction in Contemporary American Poetry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989.