Remembering Geoffrey Hill in Florence

Nicholas Brownlees (1971), Kenneth Haynes (Hill’s editor) and Simon Gammell (Director of the British Institute)

Nicholas Brownlees (1971 Jurisprudence) writes:

On Wednesday 2 July 2025, scholars and admirers of Sir Geoffrey Hill’s poetry attended a lecture at the British Institute, Florence, in commemoration of his visit to the British Institute and Tuscany in 2007. Up until then, Hill (1950 English), one of the most important English poets of the later 20th century and Oxford Professor of Poetry (2010-2015), had largely avoided Italy, perhaps feeling that he would not yet have been able to make creative use of the experience.

With his visit in 2007, he developed a vision that would organise his volume Al Tempo de’ Tremuoti (2013), one of his most important, beautiful and elusive late works. The visit in 2007 owed much to his hosts at the British Institute, including Michael and Alessandra Griffiths, who made possible not only the reading but also his itinerary while there. At the lecture on 2 July 2025, Kenneth Haynes, Professor of Literature at Brown University, USA, and Hill’s editor, spoke on the poet’s Collected Critical Writings (OUP 2008) and a line of political rhetoric (reactionary rant) to which Hill responded in some of his writing. 

Simon Gammell (Director of the British Institute), Nicholas Brownlees and the sponsors of the lecture, Michael and Alessandra Griffiths, are investigating the possibility of holding a biennial event at the British Institute in honour of Geoffrey Hill and more particularly his response and debt to Italian culture.