FORMS OF DIFFICULTY.

The article discusses American poetry. Reading new poetry is not easy. Some poets strive for the clarity of prose, but many more strive to avoid it, other (and greater) virtues seeming to demand such avoidance. One could even classify poets according to the devices they use not to be too easily comprehensible, different devices implying different purposes. Geoffrey Hill's poetry has a rich suggestive music: its difficulty comes from the absence of signposts, so that, amid all that resonance, people are unsure of the logical paths. With modern poetry, the reader must learn to trample a path for himself; then, on returning to the poem, he may find the path obliterated and have to trample another. But in the end some paths must be established, or the poem is a mere chaos. And unless, on a first reading, there is an immediate feel of richness, people may not persist in their trampling. The book "The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy," like all Hill's poetry, needs to grow slowly in the reader's mind.