Geoffrey Hill was born June 18, 1932 in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, a former market town of England. He received his B.A. and M.A. from Keble College, Oxford, where he studied English literature. His collections of poetry include The Orchards of Syon (Counterpoint Press, 2002); Speech! Speech! (2000); The Triumph of Love (1998), winner of the Heinemann Book Award; Canaan (1997), winner of the Kahn Award; The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Péguy (1983); Tenebrae (1978); Mercian Hymns (1971); King Log (1968); and For the Unfallen (1958). He has also published several collections of essays, journal and periodical articles, prose, and an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's Brand.

Hill's honors and awards include the Faber Memorial Prize, the Hawthornden Prize, the Loines Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the T.S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing from the Ingersoll Foundation, and a Churchill fellowship at the University of Bristol. He is an honorary fellow of Keble College, Oxford, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, London, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hill has taught at Emmanuel College, Boston and Cambridge Universities, and the Universities of Ibadan in Nigeria, Leeds, and Michigan at Ann Arbor. He gave the Clark Lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is currently professor of English Literature and Religion and co-director of the Editorial Institute at Boston University.