Collected Later Poems

I'll say this up front that I know of no English speaking poet in the second half of the twentieth century who, for the mastery of his craft, the depth of his psychological insight, and the gravity of view of the world, who even comes close to Anthony Hecht. As I say in the subject line, he is poetry's version of late Henry James, and one in possession of the wisdom of Sophocles. Perhaps it will take time to recognize the magnitude of his achievement, but it is surely written in the literary history to come.

Hecht is a poet of elegance and clarity, of classical learned lines reflecting a rich personal experience. He is too someone who looks at life with a hard realism which comes from his not easy - life including second world- war combat and being one of the American soldiers who liberated the concentration camp Flossenburg. He confronts the bitterness of desolate landscapes and makes of these meetings a music of deep poetic beauty. "