[It] is the ability to make poems, the command of a convention, which is so impressive about Anthony Hecht's Millions of Strange Shadows…. Hecht makes no bones about it: he is formal, immensely skilful, gives himself whatever room he needs for elaborate description, extended discourse, intricacies of reference and overlapping complexities of theme. Conscious art is Hecht's forte, and it is an art which can encompass—in the single poem ('The Cost')—a couple on a Vespa, the processes of history, the common soldier's fate, the fallibility of hope … my list is not exhaustive. Hecht's themes are moral, in both personal and public spheres; his imagination is philosophical; his art is as serious as it is authoritative. But…. And here the problem starts: his command of art filters experience (quite con sciously so) to an extent which leaves me restless. I seek metaphors for what is wrong: the...