Hill is the author of a poetry collection, has published widely in literary journals, and is an editor for a university publications department. In the following essay, Hill suggests that religious faith and personal spirituality play a much greater role in this poem than is obvious on its surface or in the speaker's actual statements.

The issue of religion in "Having it Out with Melancholy" appears minor in comparison to the overriding descriptions of and meditations on what life is like for a woman suffering from severe depression. By far, the themes in this poem center on the speaker's desperate attempt to be normal, to go through a day without sadness and dread, a day without hopelessness and drugs that sometimes work and sometimes do not. Her consideration of religious faith seems fleeting, at best, even cynical, as she bluntly announces her friend's opinion that she "wouldn't...