I thought this paragraph from the review was quite interesting:
The poems that stemmed from this horrific experience are the ones typically reproduced in anthologies, particularly “‘More Light! More Light!’,” which quotes words attributed to Goethe on his deathbed. Extreme subjects don’t always have to be paired with extreme forms or diction — poetry isn’t a toddler’s shape sorter — but it’s hard to read this work today without feeling a sense of mismatch, as grim scenes are delivered in filigreed writing. If a gun is about to be used to murder someone, it will have “hovered lightly in its glove.” If a bunch of killers are loitering, they will “lounge in a studied mimicry of ease.” If a poem is exploring the history of European violence, we will also have a “timbered hill,” “blue shadows” and “the crisp light of winter.”
There seems to be a question here hovering about how to convey great suffering in language in a way that is still somehow as curt as the suffering. I wonder what Celan would have made of Hecht.
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