Tim,
I followed up on your suggestion to look at the Hoy interview, or excerpts from it, and I am rather sorry that I did so. Probably those excerpts are too selective to give a full picture of the poet as a man, but so far as they go they show Hecht to be less than admirable. It disappointing to find that an accomplished poet is, or has been, by his own confession, a cowardly and unpatriotic individual.
The old Sir Walter Scott verses come to mind: "Breathes there a man with soul so dead...etc."
Having seen a good deal of ground action in the nearly forgotten Korean War, I believe have observed American soldiers and marines under fire quite enough to know that surly, insubordinate attitudes, much less outright cowardice, are not common among them.
This discovery concerning Hecht may henceforth make it as hard for me to enjoy his poetry as it must be for you to appreciate even the better poems of, say, Leo Y.
G.
[This message has been edited by Golias (edited November 11, 2001).]
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