Living Will

“I see [Hilton] fighting battles of bardic futility against a cloud of arrows from his own mythical past. Each arrow is a story, each line turns into song. A tough guy, actually, brave to the end, and unsparing in his passion.”—Andrei Codrescu

In a profoundly moving re-imagining of Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” the title poem details David Hilton’s own living will, tying together an unforgettable, posthumous collection that clearly evokes the stages of a life well-lived. Hilton is a California native and longtime Baltimore teacher, and his poetry has appeared in Poetry 180, edited by former poet laureate Billy Collins, and in numerous publications including The Yale Review and Poetry magazine.