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Speech! Speech! Poems
With Daumier as his muse, Geoffrey Hill, "the best poet we have, assaults the emptiness of public discourse to which we have become accustomed."-- Evening Standard . With our minds and ears fouled by degraded public speech--by media hype, insipid sermons, hollow political rhetoric, and the ritual misuse of words--how do we begin to think and speak honestly? At a time when our common language has been made false and ugly, how does the artist find words to communicate truth and beauty? These are the questions that Geoffrey Hill addresses in Speech! Speech! , a caustic, tragicomic tour de force that the London Guardian , naming it the poetry book of the year, called "magisterial--a classic of English poetry."
- GenresPoetry
80 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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48 people want to read
About the author
Geoffrey Hill
86 books50 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Sir Geoffrey William Hill was an English poet and professor emeritus of English literature and religion.
Sir Geoffrey William Hill was an English poet and professor emeritus of English literature and religion.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 3, 2009
I’m a big fan of Geoffrey Hill, but Speech, Speech is a collection (actually its one long poem – with 120 sections) that I have largely avoided. (Upon its release, I did read parts of it – which left me bewildered.) Back around that time I read a well written, and negative, review by the poet Rachel Barenblatt, which basically reinforced what I was already thinking (WTF!). She wanted to like it, but was running into some real trouble connecting the dots. I think at one point she wondered whether Speech, Speech needed to be a hypertext poem, and if so, was that a good direction for poetry to go. When I consider how much time I spent googling references up, this question seems valid, though I kind of enjoy playing literary detective. That said, I found the reading of Speech, Speech to go better than expected. This is probably due to the fact that I’ve now read similar efforts by Hill (Orchards of Syon, Without Title, A Treatise of Civil Power), and have now become conditioned to his outpourings.
When reading those efforts, I settled upon a method that made them work (better) for me. It involves reading a book three times. Once, just to get a sense of where Hill is going; second, the Google read-through; third, read it like the first effort, but with all of your new found knowledge. Granted, most are not going to want to do that, feeling Hill and his poetry are not worth the effort. (And there are those admirable few who don’t need to look this stuff up.) If you do feel (as I do) that Hill is worth the effort, then perhaps my approach can open up what are on surface very difficult collections.
On this particular collection, I’ve not yet done my three readings, and like Rachel Barenblatt, I’ve not connected the dots. But I have picked up a few things. For one thing, study the comments on the dust jacket. I have a feeling they came from Hill, especially when comparisons are made to Berryman (Dream Songs), and Eliot. And Eliot does make – I believe – a sort of showing with the word “Haruspicate”(part 29). Now there’s a word. Plug it into Eliot’s Dry Salvages:
To communicate with Mars, converse with spirits,
To report the behaviour of the sea monster,
Describe the horoscope, haruspicate or scry,
Observe disease in signatures, evoke
Biography from the wrinkles of the palm
And tragedy from fingers; release omens
By sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitable
With playing cards, fiddle with pentagrams
Or barbituric acids, or dissect
The recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors—
To explore the womb, or tomb, or dreams; all these are usual
Pastimes and drugs, and features of the press:
And always will be, some of them especially
When there is distress of nations and perplexity
Whether on the shores of Asia, or in the Edgware Road.
I hate quoting one poet at such length while discussing another poet’s effort, but I feel that it can help to orient a potential reader as to what Hill himself is trying to say. Evoking biographies is the kind of thing Hill does a lot of in just about every collection I’ve ever read. Speech, Speech has a few as well: Stanley Spencer, Martin Bucer, Nigerian Colonel Fajuyi (?). Usually these biographies involve non-conformist Christians, sometimes martyrs. Another area of interest for Hill is History itself. The dust jacket compares Speech, Speech to 120 Days of Sodom. Why? There’s nothing sexual about Hill’s effort, unless one were to call it an orgy of intellectualism. I believe the clue here lies with Sade’s implied setting – which is in Europe around the time of the Thirty Years War. Well, the “War” Hill has in mind are the two world wars, a recurring topic in Hill’s poetry.
The satire, which is pretty savage, is more difficult for me to break down. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don’t (a lot). Twice during the poem (sections 23, 84), Hill calls the Dutch “heroes,” and then gets more specific with mention of the city of Hilversum. My hunch is that he’s thinking of Pim Fortuyn, and efforts to slow or halt Muslim immigration in order to protect Dutch culture,etc. Fortuyn was still alive at the time Speech, Speech was being written, but no doubt his controversial views were being discussed in Britain. I have run across, I believe, similar Death-of-(Christian) Europe (Britain) concern in Hill’s Canaan. I may add to this later, but it involves considerable knit work (which may result in another star), so don’t hold your breath. Time may be better spent reading “Dry Salvages.”
When reading those efforts, I settled upon a method that made them work (better) for me. It involves reading a book three times. Once, just to get a sense of where Hill is going; second, the Google read-through; third, read it like the first effort, but with all of your new found knowledge. Granted, most are not going to want to do that, feeling Hill and his poetry are not worth the effort. (And there are those admirable few who don’t need to look this stuff up.) If you do feel (as I do) that Hill is worth the effort, then perhaps my approach can open up what are on surface very difficult collections.
On this particular collection, I’ve not yet done my three readings, and like Rachel Barenblatt, I’ve not connected the dots. But I have picked up a few things. For one thing, study the comments on the dust jacket. I have a feeling they came from Hill, especially when comparisons are made to Berryman (Dream Songs), and Eliot. And Eliot does make – I believe – a sort of showing with the word “Haruspicate”(part 29). Now there’s a word. Plug it into Eliot’s Dry Salvages:
To communicate with Mars, converse with spirits,
To report the behaviour of the sea monster,
Describe the horoscope, haruspicate or scry,
Observe disease in signatures, evoke
Biography from the wrinkles of the palm
And tragedy from fingers; release omens
By sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitable
With playing cards, fiddle with pentagrams
Or barbituric acids, or dissect
The recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors—
To explore the womb, or tomb, or dreams; all these are usual
Pastimes and drugs, and features of the press:
And always will be, some of them especially
When there is distress of nations and perplexity
Whether on the shores of Asia, or in the Edgware Road.
I hate quoting one poet at such length while discussing another poet’s effort, but I feel that it can help to orient a potential reader as to what Hill himself is trying to say. Evoking biographies is the kind of thing Hill does a lot of in just about every collection I’ve ever read. Speech, Speech has a few as well: Stanley Spencer, Martin Bucer, Nigerian Colonel Fajuyi (?). Usually these biographies involve non-conformist Christians, sometimes martyrs. Another area of interest for Hill is History itself. The dust jacket compares Speech, Speech to 120 Days of Sodom. Why? There’s nothing sexual about Hill’s effort, unless one were to call it an orgy of intellectualism. I believe the clue here lies with Sade’s implied setting – which is in Europe around the time of the Thirty Years War. Well, the “War” Hill has in mind are the two world wars, a recurring topic in Hill’s poetry.
The satire, which is pretty savage, is more difficult for me to break down. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don’t (a lot). Twice during the poem (sections 23, 84), Hill calls the Dutch “heroes,” and then gets more specific with mention of the city of Hilversum. My hunch is that he’s thinking of Pim Fortuyn, and efforts to slow or halt Muslim immigration in order to protect Dutch culture,etc. Fortuyn was still alive at the time Speech, Speech was being written, but no doubt his controversial views were being discussed in Britain. I have run across, I believe, similar Death-of-(Christian) Europe (Britain) concern in Hill’s Canaan. I may add to this later, but it involves considerable knit work (which may result in another star), so don’t hold your breath. Time may be better spent reading “Dry Salvages.”
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October 31, 2024Diva down (me) (Hill too)
February 28, 2018
Like most poetry, this is best read aloud, preferably, in this case, at one reading, emulating the Speech! Speech! of the title, although that would be a bit tiring! It's quite difficult following all the stresses, line breaks (and broken lines!) and punctuation, while still following the meaning. I completely missed the references to Princess Diana, although perhaps that's just a reflection of the general depth of my understanding, and maybe why I find most books enjoyable!
I found a reading by Geoffrey Hill on youtube (part of the Poetry Marathon 2009 at the Serpentine Gallery) which includes some of the sections of this book (which is one long poem) so on a future reading I'll follow those in the book. I'm sure there's plenty more to be found here, that will repay further efforts!
I found a reading by Geoffrey Hill on youtube (part of the Poetry Marathon 2009 at the Serpentine Gallery) which includes some of the sections of this book (which is one long poem) so on a future reading I'll follow those in the book. I'm sure there's plenty more to be found here, that will repay further efforts!
March 14, 2025
compelling, dense, confusing, delightful, dichotomous, erotic, adjectival... so many words so few to aptly describe this. ebullient. magical. linguistic 'fragments shored against the poet's ruins', to quote eliot.
read in tandem with ann hassan's annotations; would greatly recommend.
read in tandem with ann hassan's annotations; would greatly recommend.
December 24, 2009
I'm not sure what most of this meant, but it was compelling nonetheless. I need to re-read it. Hill is one of those writers who makes you smarter just by reading him, but he requires work (in my limited experience).
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews