Pulitzer Prize Poetry Winner
Collected Verse
by Robert Hillyer
Summary
This retrospective gathers Hillyer's pastoral lyrics, sonnet sequences, and meditative narratives in steady traditional meters. He prizes lucidity, classical reference, and a contemplative tone shaped by long study of English Augustan and Romantic poets. The collection stands as a deliberate counterstatement to the fragmentation championed by his modernist contemporaries.
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Historical Context & Significance
Hillyer was a staunch traditionalist who often publicly feuded with the proponents of the 'New Poetry' like Pound and Eliot.