This took me a long time to read, which suggests that it wasn't quite as good as other Hill books. There are too many poems addressed to people I've never heard of or people who don't really need to have poems addressed to them (Stanley Rosen, for instance, great scholar though he may be; Jimi Hendrix, though a wonderful guitarist; Hart Crane, a decent enough poet). The Pindarics to Pavese bored me to begin with, but I quite liked them by the end. From 20:

Someone there has made a chalk drawing
of the common man. In history-time
he came and went so patient he was blind,
blinded, even, a tommy on Somme duckboards;
and his patience was brought against him,
a servitude or an indictment.
If what I grope for lies above the mud-lid
we shall at some point grasp his calvary.
Other than the story this tells nothing--

If nothing else, it makes me want to read Pavese.

Another favorite stanza from a poem i.m. Ken Smith:

Delete delenda est--exemplary
Carthage her rubbed-in wounds.
Not everything's a joke but we've been had.

The last line should be this century's motto. ( )