Dear Bill
Tim has invited me to comment on this poem in the light of Anthony Hecht’s remarks. I have to say that Mr Hecht’s views broadly coincide with my own. This seems rhythmically awkward throughout and particularly at the close of each of the three stanzas. (I assume the version Mr Hecht saw was printed in that way.) The pentameter jars inasmuch as the pattern of tetrameters and trimeters which precede encourages the expectation of a final line of three or perhaps four beats. (The degree of closure would differ in each case.) Though some might argue that this jarring effect was a kind of metrical mimesis, for me it merely jars. The enjambment from stanza 2 to stanza 3 I find melodramatic, rather than dramatic. As to the diction, David Mason has remarked on the odd blend of modern ballad and hymnody. “Ambuscade” sounds slightly archaic to my ear, though my OED suggests it may perhaps still have some currency as a technical military term. In my opinion, the shift of addressee from stanza to stanza is not as a concept flawed, and I would not take so severe a view of it as Mr Hecht; but, as phrased here and in the context created by the whole poem, it does not quite come off. I should add that the material has much poetic potential.
I greatly admire your openness and courage in urging the posting of Mr Hecht’s comments. It is not what I should have done, I am sure. From your postings in the past, however, it is exactly what I would have expected of you.
Kind regards
Clive Watkins
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