Paul Bachelor at Poetry Magazine:
As many critics have noted, Hill established himself from the beginning as an elegist. The title For the Unfallen promises a
memorial for the living, and the book itself contains “In Memory of Jane Fraser,” “Requiem for the Plantagenet Kings,” “Two Formal Elegies,” “In Piam Memoriam,” “Wreaths,” “Elegiac Stanzas,” and “Of Commerce and Society” (a series of memorials for Shelley, the Titanic, and St. Sebastian, among others). Each of these elegies is grounded in a particular historical moment. A close engagement with history — itself a form of respectful acknowledgment to the dead — will become another unifying characteristic of Hill’s career.
Such engagement moves center stage in Hill’s second collection, King Log (1968), with the astonishing sonnet sequence “Funeral Music,” which is dedicated to William de la Pole, John Tiptoft, and Anthony Woodville: aristocrats executed during the Wars of the Roses.
more here.