Anthony Hecht
Anthony Hecht
Anthony Evan Hechtwas an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth16 January 1923
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
both committed destroyed fear memory poems wife
Mandelstam's wife committed all his poems to memory in fear that both he and his poems would be destroyed by Stalin.
children
It doesn't seem to me strange that children should like the macabre, the sensational, and the forbidden.
age carelessly facts questions supposed
These questions absorbed me at an age when I was supposed to be getting down the rudimentary facts of American history, which I carelessly neglected.
fun lying trying
A lot of the fun lies in trying to penetrate the mystery; and this is best done by saying over the lines to yourself again and again, till they pass through the stage of sounding like nonsense, and finally return to a full sense that had at first escaped notice.
excellence mediocrity survived
Merely to have survived is not an index of excellence.
children age world
Children know from a remarkably early age that things are being kept from them, that grown-ups participate in a world of mysteries.
children parent masonic
Mysteries, like the Masonic rites, are ones parents and elders are sworn not to reveal to the uninitiated, which include all children. And so we sought for signs.
memories library poet
There's not a good poet I know who has not at the beck and call of his memory a vast quantity of poetry that composes his mental library.
children strange should
It doesnt seem to me strange that children should like the macabre, the sensational, and the forbidden.
gratitude eye order
I'm filled with admiration, delight, and gratitude at discovering James Lasdun's poems in A Jump Start. He has wit, speed, intelligence, a keen eye, precision, and imagination of a high order.
writing promise vivid
Brilliant. [Lasdun] seems to me certainly among the most gifted, vivid, and deft poets now writing in English, and far better than many who are more famous. His capacities are solidly established; his promise is nearly infinite.
sports heart bruises
If the heart has its reasons, perhaps the body Has its own lumbering sort of carnal spirit, Felt in the tingling bruises of collision, And known to captains as esprit de corps.
dark secret hints
Poetry operates by hints and dark suggestions. It is full of secrets and hidden formulae, like a witch's brew.
looks saved
I look and look, / As though I could be saved simply by looking