Product Description

This volume contains the finest short poetry Donald Hall has written, poems of landscape and love, of dedication and prophecy, poems that have won thousands of readers, as well as various prizes and honors.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #535420 in Books
• Published on: 1990-07-23
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This diverse collection, which gathers work from 1947 to 1990 by poet and steadfast New Englander Hall (National Book Critics Circle-winning The One Day ), will serve as a superb introduction to newcomers and a sumptuous offering to familiars. Given the book's scope, it is not surprising that a few early poems show somewhat less craft than do recent efforts; Hall's large-bodied, later poetry fully and freshly dominates the volume. Our delight is in following an exceptional poet's growth and depth as he emerges with a richly playful but consummately serious voice. Hall's mirth shines in "O Cheese," a paean to "the dear dense cheeses, Cheddars and harsh / Lancashires; Gorgonzola with its magnanimous manner; / the clipped speech of Roquefort; and a head of Stilton / that speaks in a sensuous riddling tongue like Druids," and in "The Impossible Marriage," his whimsical dream of a union between Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman. More somber narrative poems center on Hall's own experiences and on memories of his grandfather's New Hampshire dairy farm, where things rural suggest parables of life and death: "We are all of us sheep, and death is our shepherd, / and we die as the animals die," he observes in "The Black-Faced Sheep". Farm animals are nearly always sublime subjects, with Holstein cows unforgettably described as "these wallowing / big-eyed calf-makers, bone-rafters for leather, / awkward arks, cud-chewing lethargic mooers" in "Great Day in the Cows' House." If its most memorable poem is the haunting valediction in "Praise for Death," Hall's magnum opus nevertheless bears witness to a vigorous poetic imagination matched by its generous vision of life: "You listening here, you reading these words as I write them, / I offer this cup to you: Though we drink / from this cup every day, we will never drink it dry" ("The Day I Was Older").
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Hall's long and vigorous life in poetry is represented here with poems taken from all his previous books (except 1988's The One Day ), a handful of uncollected pieces, and 22 poems written during the last four years. From the formal prosody of his earliest lyrics, through 1960s surrealism, to back-to-the-land narratives of life in rural New Hampshire, this collection could be a core sample from the bedrock of major American poetic styles. But Hall's ability to enlist humor, angst, and anecdote in his quest for great themes is unique. Though Hall is in his sixties, his newest work contains the same vim and spark that drives his older poems, approaching the level of achievement realized in what may be his finest, "Kicking the Leaves." A fascinating and rewarding omnibus.
- Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
1934
Abroad Thoughts From Home
Acorns
Adultery At Forty
An Airstrip In Essex, 1960
The Alligator Bride
Apples
At Delphi
The Baseball Players
Beau Of The Dead
'between The Clock And The Bed'
The Black Faced Sheep
The Blue Wing
The Body Politic (1)
Brief Lives
By The Exeter River
Carlotta's Confession
A Carol
The Child
A Child's Garden
Christ Church Meadows, Oxford
Christmas Eve In Whitneyville
Cider 5 Cents A Glass
The Clown
The Coal Fire
The Coffee Cup
Cold Water
The Columns Of The Parthenon
Conduct And Work
Cops And Robbers
The Corner
Dancers
The Day I Was Older
The Days
Digging
The Dump
Eating The Pig
Edward's Anecdote
Eleanor's Letters
Elegy For Wesley Wells
Exile
The Family
The Farm
Fathers And Sons
Fete
Flies
For An Exchange Of Rings
The Foundations Of American Industry
A Friend Revisited
Gold
A Grace
Granite And Grass
The Grave, The Well
Great Day In The Cow's House
The Green Shelf
The Grown-ups
The Henyard Round
The High Pasture
The Hole
The Hut Of The Man Alone
The Idea Of Flying
Illustration
The Impossible Marriage
In The Old House
'internal And External Forms' (from Henry Moore's Sculpture)
Je Suis Une Table
The Jealous Lovers
Kicking The Leaves
The Kill
'king And Queen' (from Henry Moore's Sculpture)
'the Kiss'
Letter To An English Poet
The Lone Ranger
The Long River
Love Is Like Sounds
The Man In The Dead Machine
Maple Syrup
'marat's Death'
Match
Material
Maundy Thursday's Candles
Merle Bascom's .22
Milkers Broken Up
The Moon
Moon Clock
Mount Kearsarge
Mr. And Mrs. Billings
Mr. Wakeville On Interstate 90
My Friend Felix
My Son The Executioner
Mycenae
Names Of Horses
New Animals
New Hampshire
No Color Man
No Deposit
Nose
Notes For Nobody
O Cheese
'o Flodden Field' (in Memory Of Edwin Muir)
Old Home Week
Old Houses
The Old Pilot
Old Roses
Old Timers' Day
On A Horse Carved In Wood
On Reaching The Age Of Two Hundred
Our Walk In Yorkshire
Ox Cart Man
Oysters And Hermits
Passage To Worship
Persistence Of 1937
Photographs Of China
Pictures Of Philippa
The Poem
Poem With One Fact
Praise For Death
President And Poet
The Presidentiad
The Raisin
'reclining Figure' (from Henry Moore's Sculpture)
The Red Branch
Religious Articles
The Repeated Shapes
The Revolution
The Rocker
Scenic View
The Scream
The Sea
A Second Stanza
Self-portrait, As A Bear
September Ode
Sestina
A Set Of Seasons
Sew
Shudder
A Sister By The Pond
A Sister On The Tracks
Six Naps In One Day
Sleeping
The Sleeping Giant; A Hill In Connecticut
A Small Fig Tree
The Snow
Some Oddities
Southwest Of Buffalo
Speeches
Stone Walls
The Stones
Stories
The Stump
Sums (from The Daye-boke Of Adam Raison, 1515-1560)
The Sun
Swan
The Table
This Poem
The Three Movements
To A Waterfowl
To The Loud Wind
Tomorrow
The Town Of Hill
The Toy Bone
Traffic
Transcontinent
The Tree And The Cloud
Tubes
Twelve Seasons
The Umbrella
The Valley Of Morning
A Village In East Anglia
Waiting On The Corners
Waters
Wedding Party
Wells
Whip-poor-will
White Apples
The Widows
Wolf Knife (from The Journals Of C.f. Hoyt, Usn, 1826-89)
Woolworth's
The Wreckage
The Young Watch Us
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Customer Reviews

A New England Poet
Donald Hall, who has recently been named poet laureate of the United States, has been compared to New England poet, Robert Frost. Much of his poetry has a "familiar" feel to it, though not derivative. He speaks as a child when describing the Sleeping Giant, a small mountain in Hamden, CT, where, if one is in the right spot, the head, chest and feet of the "giant" can be imagined. He grew up in Hamden, CT, but his grandfather's home in the New Hampshire mountains helped shape his view of life, as well. In "Old and New Poems" his changing viewes of life over the years are seen.

In the poem "1934" he reminds the reader of life during the Great Depression, and the fears it engendered.

His poetry reminds readers of ordinary day to day activities. He writes of his father and grandfather reminiscing "In the Kitchen of the Old House", where "his early death grew inside him, like snow piling on the grass".

"Old and New Poems" is very readable, and often autobiographical. I loved reading it.
Nancy Green