RaveThe Spectator (UK)Hill’s characteristic style, hopping over centuries with semi-cryptic allusions, barks of rage and mordant humoor. I say ‘semi-cryptic’ because sometimes it is hard to follow his trains of thought ... Hill’s chosen form, like Christopher Smart on steroids (for I will consider my poet Geoffrey, who also alludes to Smart within the work), allows him great freedom, and if there are some out there who will argue that this is not poetry, it’s certainly not prosaic. Every word here is charged, potent, lapidary. But then this was always the case with Hill ... It is among his greatest work.
