Jonathan S.F. Post
A Thickness of Particulars: The Poetry of Anthony Hecht
Oxford University Press, 2015, $35
Jonathan S.F. Post approaches Anthony Hecht’s varied oeuvre with a combination of meticulousness and vision. A scholarly humility, paired with a willingness to venture broader claims about Hecht’s poetic evolution, makes A Thickness of Particulars not just essential criticism of Hecht’s work (not to mention the first comprehensive study), but an elegant illustration of how careful close readings are not just compatible with—but are indispensable to—acts of interpretive imagination. In his preface, Post imports Hecht’s phrase “A thickness of particulars” from his well-known poem “The Transparent Man” as an invitation to think with particular precision about the nuances of individual poems, and as “a call, a credo, applicable to poet and critic alike, and also, of course, a warning about the difficulty of getting things right.” It seems very clear to me that Post’s scrupulous and discerning readings of Hecht’s poetry have gotten it right.