Donald Hall (born 20 September 1928) is an American
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
. He was appointed
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of CongressThe Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate, serves as the nation's official poet. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing...
(commonly known as the Poet Laureate of the United States) in 2006.
Early years
Hall was born in
Hamden, ConnecticutHamden is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town's nickname is "The Land of the Sleeping Giant." Hamden is home to Quinnipiac University. The population was 58,180 according to the Census Bureau's 2005 estimates...
, the only child of Donald Andrew Hall, a businessman, and Lucy Wells. He was educated at
Phillips Exeter AcademyPhillips Exeter Academy is a co-educational independent boarding school for grades 9–12 and postgraduates, located on in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA, north of Boston....
, then earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1951 and a B.Litt, from
OxfordOxford is a city, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. The city has a population of just under 165,000, with 151,000 living within the district boundary. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre...
in 1953. Hall received a honorary PhD, Lit. from
Bates CollegeBates College is a private liberal arts college located in Lewiston, Maine, in the United States. The college was founded in 1855 by abolitionists. Bates confers Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degrees. Bates College is one of the first colleges to be coeducational from establishment...
in 1991.
Hall began writing even before reaching his teens, beginning with poems and short stories, and then moving on to novels and dramatic verse. Hall continued to write throughout his prep school years at Exeter, and, while still only sixteen years old, attended the
Bread Loaf Writers' ConferenceThe Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, called by The New Yorker "the oldest and most prestigious writers' conference in the country" was founded in 1926. It is held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont...
, where he made his first acquaintance with the poet
Robert FrostRobert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
. That same year, he published his first work. While an undergraduate at Harvard, Hall served on the editorial board of
The Harvard AdvocateThe Harvard Advocate, the literary magazine of Harvard College, is the oldest continuously published college literary magazine in the United States. The magazine was founded by Charles S. Gage and William G. Peckham in 1866 and, except for a hiatus during the last years of World War II, has...
, and got to know a number of people who, like him, were poised with significant ambitions in the literary world, amongst them
John AshberyJohn Ashbery is an American poet. He has won nearly every major American award for poetry and is recognized as one of America's most important, though still controversial, poets...
,
Robert BlyRobert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement in the United States.-Life:...
,
Kenneth KochKenneth Koch was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77...
,
Frank O'HaraFrancis Russell O'Hara was an American poet who, along with John Ashbery, James Schuyler, Barbara Guest and Kenneth Koch, was a key member of the New York School of poetry.-Life:...
, and
Adrienne RichAdrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the [20th] century."-Early life:...
, whom he dated briefly. During his senior year, he won the
Glascock PrizeThe Glascock Poetry Prize is awarded to the winner of the annual Kathryn Irene Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Contest at Mount Holyoke College...
that Koch had won 3 years earlier.
After leaving Harvard, Hall went to Oxford for two years, to study for the B.Litt. He was editor of the magazine
Oxford PoetryOxford Poetry is a literary magazine based in Oxford, England. It is currently edited by Hamid Khanbhai and Thomas A Richards.Founded in 1910 by Basil Blackwell, its editors have included Dorothy L...
, as literary editor of Isis, as editor of New Poems, and as poetry editor of The Paris Review. At the end of his first Oxford year, Hall also won the university's
Newdigate PrizeSir Roger Newdigate's Prize is awarded to students of the University of Oxford for Best Composition in English verse by an undergraduate who has been admitted to Oxford within the previous four years. It was founded by Sir Roger Newdigate, Bt in the 18th century...
, awarded for his long poem, 'Exile'.
On returning to the United States, Hall went to Stanford, where he spent one year as a Creative Writing Fellow, studying under the poet-critic,
Yvor WintersArthur Yvor Winters was an American poet and literary critic. His criticism was often embroiled in controversy.-As modernist:...
. Following his year at Stanford, Hall went back to Harvard, where he spent three years in the Society of Fellows. During that time, he put together his first book,
Exiles and Marriages, and with Robert Pack and
Louis SimpsonLouis Aston Marantz Simpson is an American poet. He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his work At The End Of The Open Road.-Life:...
edited an anthology which was to make a significant impression on both sides of the Atlantic, The New Poets of England and America. While teaching at the
University of MichiganThe University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is a public research university located in the state of Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university, the flagship campus of the University of Michigan, and one of the top public universities in the world...
in
Ann Arbor, MichiganAnn Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. It is the state's seventh largest city with a population of 114,024 as of the 2000 Census, of which 36,892 are university or college students...
he met poet
Jane KenyonJane Kenyon was an American poet and translator. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant.-Life:...
, whom he married in 1972. Three years after they were wed, they moved to Eagle Pond Farm, his grandparents' former home in
Wilmot, New HampshireWilmot is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,144 at the 2000 census. Wilmot is home to Winslow State Park and a small part of Gile State Forest.- History :...
. Hall and Kenyon were profiled at their home in a 1993 PBS documentary, "A Life Together," which aired as an episode of "The Bill Moyers Journal."
In 1989, when Hall was sixty-one, it was discovered that he had colon cancer. Surgery followed, but by 1992 the cancer had metastasized to his liver. After another operation, and chemotherapy, he went into remission, though he was told that he only had a one-in-three chance of surviving the next five years. Then, early in 1994, it was discovered that Kenyon had leukemia. Her illness, her death fifteen months later, and Hall's struggle to come to terms with these things, were the subject of his 1998 book,
Without. Another book of poems dedicated to Kenyon,
Painted Bed, is cited by Publishers Weekly as "more controlled, more varied and more powerful, this taut follow-up volume reexamines Hall's grief while exploring the life he has made since. The book's first poem, 'Kill the Day,' stands among the best Hall has ever written. It examines mourning in 16 long-lined stanzas, alternating catalogue with aphorism, understatement with keened lament: 'How many times will he die in his own lifetime?' "
In 2005, he published the memoir
The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon -- an intimate record of their 23-year marriage.
Hall has been closely affiliated with the
Bennington College'sBennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
graduate writing program since 1994, giving lectures and readings annually.
Career
To date, Hall has published fifteen books of poetry, most recently
White Apples and the Taste of Stone (2006),
The Painted Bed (2002) and
Without: Poems (1998), which was published on the third anniversary of
Jane KenyonJane Kenyon was an American poet and translator. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant.-Life:...
's death. Most of the poems in
Without deal with Kenyon's illness and death, and many are epistolary poems. In addition to poetry, he has also written several collections of essays (among them
Life Work and
String Too Short to be Saved), children's books (notably
Ox-Cart ManOx-Cart Man is the title of a 1979 book written by Donald Hall and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. It won the 1980 Caldecott Medal. The book deals with an 18th century farming family that uses an ox-cart to take their goods to market, where they make the money to buy the things they need.Ox-Cart Man...
, which won the
Caldecott MedalThe Caldecott Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published that year. It was named in honor of nineteenth-century English illustrator...
), and a number of plays. His recurring themes include
New EnglandNew England is a region of the United States. It is located at the northeastern corner of the US, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Canada and the state of New York, consisting of the modern U.S...
rural living,
baseballBaseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond...
, and how work conveys meaning to ordinary life. He is regarded as a master both of received forms and
free verseFree verse - also known as vers libre - is a term describing various styles of poetry that are written without using a strict rhyme scheme, but still recognizable as poetry by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers will perceive to be part of a coherent whole.-Types:Philip...
, and a champion of the art of revision, for whom writing is first and foremost a craft, not merely a mode of self-expression. Hall has won many awards, including two Guggenheim Fellowships and a
Robert FrostRobert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
Medal, and has served as
poet laureateA Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events....
of his state. He continues to live and work at Eagle Pond Farm.
When not working on poems, he has turned his hand to reviews, criticism, textbooks, sports journalism, memoirs, biographies, children's stories, and plays. He has also devoted a lot of time to editing: between 1983 and 1996 he oversaw publication of more than sixty titles for the University of Michigan Press alone. He was for five years
Poet LaureateA Poet Laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for State occasions and other government events....
of his home state,
New HampshireNew Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian province of...
(1984-89), and can list among the many other honours and awards to have come his way: the Lamont Poetry Prize for
Exiles and Marriages (1955), the Edna St Vincent Millay Award (1956), two Guggenheim Fellowships (1963-64, 1972-73), inclusion on the Horn Book Honour List (1986), the Sarah Josepha Hale Award (1983), the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize (1987), the
National Book Critics Circle AwardThe National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
for Poetry (1988), the NBCC Award (1989), the
Los Angeles TimesThe Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California since 1881. It is distributed throughout the Western United States. It is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in the United States and the fourth-most widely distributed newspaper in the United States...
Book Prize in poetry (1989), and the
Frost MedalThe Robert Frost Medal is an award of the Poetry Society of America for "distinguished lifetime service to American poetry." Medalists receive a prize purse of $2,500....
(1990). He has been nominated for the
National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are among the most eminent literary prizes in the United States. Started in 1950, the awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the prior year, as well as lifetime achievement awards including the "Medal of Distinguished Contribution to...
on three separate occasions (1956, 1979 and 1993). In 1994, he received the
Ruth Lilly Poetry PrizeThe Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded annually by The Poetry Foundation; the Foundation also publishes Poetry. The Prize was established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly. The prize honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition"; its value is presently $100,000...
for his lifetime achievement.
Hall was named the fourteenth
U.S. Poet LaureateThe Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate, serves as the nation's official poet. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing...
, succeeding
Ted KooserTed Kooser is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004 to 2006.-Early years:...
. He served from 1 October 2006, and was succeeded by
Charles SimicDušan “Charles” Simić is a Serbian-American poet, and was co-Poetry Editor of the Paris Review. He was appointed the fifteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2007.-Early years:...
the following year. At the time of his appointment, Hall was profiled in an Oct. 16, 2006 episode of
The News Hour With Jim Leher.
Poetry
- Fantasy Poets Number Four (1952)
- Exiles and Marriages (1955)
- The Dark Houses (1958)
- A Hundred Thousand Straightened Nails (1961)
- A Roof of Tiger Lilies (1964)
- The Alligator Bride (1969)
- The Yellow Room: Love Poems (1971)
- The Town of Hill (1975)
- A Blue Wing Tilts at the Edge of the Sea: Selected Poems, 1964-1974 (1975)
- Kicking the Leaves (1978)
- The Toy Bone (1979)
- The Happy Man (1986)
- The One Day (1988)
- Old and New Poems (1990)
- Here at Eagle Pond (1992)
- The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993)
- The Old Life (1996)
- Without (1998)
- The Painted Bed (2002)
- White Apples and the Taste of Stone (2006)
Drama
- An Evening's Frost (1965)
- Bread and Roses (1975)
- Ragged Mountain Elegies (1983)
For children
- Andrew the Lion Farmer (1959)
- Riddle Rat (1977)
- Ox-Cart Man
Ox-Cart Man is the title of a 1979 book written by Donald Hall and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. It won the 1980 Caldecott Medal. The book deals with an 18th century farming family that uses an ox-cart to take their goods to market, where they make the money to buy the things they need.Ox-Cart Man...
(1979)
- The Man Who Lived Alone (1984)
- I Am the Dog, I Am the Cat (1994)
- Summer of 1944 (1994)
- Lucy's Christmas (1994)
- Lucy's Summer (1995)
- Old Home Day (1996)
- When Willard Met Babe Ruth (1996)
- The Milkman's Boy (1997)
Memoirs
- The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon (2005)
- Unpacking the Boxes: A Memoir of a Life in Poetry (2008)
External links