Odi Barbare Geoffrey Hill

Odi Barbare is the second in Geoffrey Hill's sequence The Daybooks, and the third to be published. It was preceded by Daybooks III: Oraclau Oracles (2010) and Daybooks IV: Clavics (2011). The others in the series, to appear in the Collected Poems 1952-2012 from Oxford University Press in 2013, are: Al Tempo de' Tremuoti and Liber Illustrium Virorum. In the present sequence Hill uses the 'Sapphic' verse form - 're-cadencing' the example of Sir Philip Sidney - with extraordinary discipline and expressive energy to address 'this dyingTime that bends so beautifully around things' and now beats back 'more than it delivers', work that requires 'intelligent patience' but wants the time such patience needs.