This whole conversation interests me very much. I've long been an admirer of 
Hill's work, which seems to me at the same time both flexible and 
controlled.

I find him very grateful to read aloud, and have never had the least 
difficulty, though this could simply mean that I'm missing the point 
entirely. (NB: I do not of course believe that .... ) However, I've a friend 
who found Hill's work quite impenetrable, until I suggested she tried 
reading it aloud. She said that was a helpful approach though the work was 
still not to her personal taste.

Good luck with the dissertation, Eileen -- where are you studying?

And Dom, many congratulations on finishing Half Cocks, and I want to read 
the whole sequence. Believe me, I'm not being facetious when I say Now what 
are you going to do? Or do you have your next project all lined up and ready 
to go?

joanna

> Sunday, July 30, 2006 3:37 AM
> From: "Eileen Abrahams" <[log in to unmask]>

> I'm writing a dissertation on Hill, and it includes pitch analyses of
> various people reading Hill.  It also happens that Ricks is on my
> commiittee; so, I'd love to get a hold of Ricks reading Hill.  Where did 
> you
> listen to Rick's reading, and does there exist an available recording?
>
> Thanks-
> Eileen
>
>
>
> On 7/29/06, Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> I've just been listening to Christopher Ricks trying to read the early
>> poems of Geoffrey Hill. He was quite surprisingly bad at it - tin ear
>> for rhythm possibly, a strange defect in such an admirer of Dylan...
>>
>> Anyway, I've had a go at reading some of my own poems, and turning
>> them into a podcast for the delectation of that vanishingly small
>> percentage of the global population who both own iPods and like to
>> download poetry broadcasts to listen on them. Half Cocks 1-5, plus a
>> bit of me pretending to be Squarepusher, form the first broadcast
>> available by pointing your podcast-consuming appliance at
>> http://codepoetics.com/poetix/?feed=rss2
>>
>> Alternatively, you can just grab the audio file from
>> http://codepoetics.com/half_cocks/half_cocks_1-5.m4a
>>
>> Dominic
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Eileen Abrahams
> Ph.D. Candidate
> Editorial Fellow
> Texas Studies in Literature and Language
> The University of Texas at Austin
>
> It is the precise detail of word or rhythm, which carries the ethical
> burden; it is technique, rightly understood, which provides the true point
> of departure for inspiration.
>                               ---Geoffrey Hill
>