Geoffrey Hill, the son of a police constable, was born in Worcestershire in 1932. He was educated at Bromsgrove County High School and at Keble College, Oxford. After teaching for more than thirty years in England, first at Leeds and subsequently at Cambridge, he became Professor of Literature and Religion at Boston University in Massachusetts, where he was also founding co-director of the Editorial Institute. In 2010 he was elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford.

• FOR THE UNFALLEN (1959); KING LOG (1968); MERCIAN HYMNS (1971); TENEBRAE (1978); THE MYSTERY OF THE CHARITY OF CHARLES PEGUY (1983); HYMNS TO OUR LADY OF CHARTRES (1982 2012); CANAAN (1996); THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE (1998); SPEECH! SPEECH! (2000); THE ORCHARDS OF SYON (2002); SCENES FROM COMUS (2005); WITHOUT TITLE (2006); PINDARICS (2005 2012); A TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER (2007); LUDO (2011); THE DAYBOOKS (2007 2012)

Vivid clarity ... intense lyric beauty. This is work of the first importance.