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The Venetian Vespers: Poems

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Anthony Hecht is simply the best living poet in America, perhaps the world. And this collection of poems is his best. In particular, the eponymous twenty-six page poem that forms the center of the book is the most meditative, sensitive, exquisite poem of our age. Moreover, it is indispensable for anyone wishing to acquaint himself or herself with Hecht's work, for amidst all the exquisite imagery, contemplations of life and mortality, play of light and dark, is the autobiography of Hecht, rendered as masterfully and wonderfully as anything I've ever read. Mr. Hecht is erudite in history and literature, and though the knowledge and feel of the woe of mankind is ever present in his works. He is also aware of those moments of presentiment when its weight is lifted. Take, for example, these lines from the poem "Still Life" regarding the moments just before dawn:

Why does this so much stir me, like a code
Or muffled intimation
Of surprises and preordained events?
It knows me, and I recognize its mode
Of cautionary, spring-like hesitation,
This silence so impacted and intense.

As in a water-surface I behold
The first, soft, peach decree
Of light, its pale inaudible commands.
I stand beneath the pine tree in the cold,
Just before dawn, somewhere in Germany,
A cold, wet, Gerand rifle in my hands.

In two magisterial stanzas, Hecht conveys a wonder and terror through which that he has lived. With other soi-disant "poets" literally "Howling" around him, Hecht maintains, in his quiet, almost whispering, voice an authority and verbal power to convey the beauty and terror of our haunted world. Everyone entranced with life, mystery and words should own this book.