Donald Hall | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1928-09-20)September 20, 1928 Hamden, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Died | June 23, 2018(2018-06-23) (aged 89) Wilmot, New Hampshire, U.S. |
| Occupation | Poet, writer, editor, critic. |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) Christ Church, Oxford (BLitt) |
| Period | 1950–2018 |
| Genre | Poetry, essays, children's literature, memoirs, biography |
| Notable awards | Robert Frost Medal (1991) |
| Spouse | Kirby Thompson (m. 1952–69) |
Donald Andrew Hall Jr.[1] (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018) was an American poet, writer, editor, and literary critic. He was the author of more than 50 books across multiple genres including children's literature, biography, memoirs, essays, plays, sports journalism, and fifteen volumes of verse.[2] He was a graduate ofPhillips Exeter Academy,Harvard University, andChrist Church, Oxford.[3] Early in his career, he became the first poetry editor ofThe Paris Review (1953–1961), the quarterly literary journal, and was noted for interviewing poets and other authors on their craft.
On June 14, 2006, Hall was appointed as theLibrary of Congress's 14th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry (commonly known as "Poet Laureate of the United States").[4] He is regarded as a "plainspoken, rural poet," and it has been said that, in his work, he "explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects [an] abiding reverence for nature."[5]
Hall was respected for his work as an academic, having taught atStanford University,Bennington College and theUniversity of Michigan, and having made significant contributions to the study and craft of writing.
Hall was born inHamden, Connecticut, the only child of Donald Andrew Hall, a businessman, and Lucy Wells.[6] He was educated atPhillips Exeter Academy, then earned anA.B.magna cum laude fromHarvard in 1951, where he was elected toPhi Beta Kappa, and aB.Litt., fromChrist Church, Oxford in 1953.
Hall began writing even before reaching his teens,[7] beginning with poems and short stories, and then moving on to novels and dramatic verse. He continued to write throughout his prep school years at Exeter, and, while still only sixteen years old, attended theBread Loaf Writers' Conference, where he made his first acquaintance with the poetRobert Frost. That same year, Hall published his first work. While an undergraduate at Harvard, he served on the editorial board ofThe Harvard Advocate, and got to know a number of people who, like him, were poised with significant ambitions in the literary world, amongst themJohn Ashbery,Robert Bly,Kenneth Koch,Frank O'Hara, andAdrienne Rich.[8] During his senior year, Hall won theGlascock Prize 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 magazineOxford Poetry, literary editor ofIsis, editor ofNew Poems, and poetry editor ofThe Paris Review. At the end of his first Oxford year, he won the university'sNewdigate Prize, awarded for his long poem, "Exile".[9] In September 1952, he married his first wife, Kirby Thompson, with whom he had a son and daughter.[10]
Upon returning to the U.S., Hall went toStanford University for one year as a creative writing fellow, studying under the poet-criticYvor Winters. Hall then returned to Harvard, where he spent 1954–1957 in the Society of Fellows.[11] During that time, he published his first book of poems,Exiles and Marriages. In 1957, he co-edited withRobert Pack andLouis Simpson a poetry anthology that was to make a significant impression on both sides of the Atlantic,New Poets of England and America. Its preference for formal, academic verse was later contrasted withDonald Allen's 1960 anthology,The New American Poetry 1945–1960, which emphasized experimental verse.[12] From 1958 to 1964, Hall served as a member of the editorial board for poetry atWesleyan University Press.[13] In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against U.S. involvement in theVietnam War.[14]
In 1967, Hall and his wife, Kirby, separated; the couple divorced in 1969.[8] While teaching at theUniversity of Michigan inAnn Arbor, Michigan, he met the poetJane Kenyon, whom he married in 1972.[6] Three years later, the couple moved to Eagle Pond Farm, his grandparents' former home inWilmot, New Hampshire. Hall and Kenyon were profiled at their home in a 1993 PBS documentary, "A Life Together", which aired as an episode ofBill Moyers Journal. In 1989, when Hall was in his early sixties, it was discovered that he hadcolon 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 1 in 3 chance of surviving the next five years.[15]
Then, early in 1994, it was discovered that Kenyon hadleukemia. Her debilitating illness, her death fifteen months later, and Hall's struggle to come to terms with these tragedies, were the subject of his 1998 poetry collection,Without, which contains poems written in anepistolary format. A subsequent poetry collection dedicated to Kenyon,The Painted Bed, is cited byPublishers 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 keen lament: 'How many times will he die in his own lifetime?'"[16]
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Hall published fifteen books of poetry. Two of these—The One Day (1988) andOld and New Poems (1990)—were included by criticHarold Bloom in his list of works constituting theWestern Canon.[17] Hall's later collections, "generally regarded as the best of his career",[5] includedWithout (1998),The Painted Bed (2002), andWhite Apples and the Taste of Stone (2006).[2] His recurring themes in poetry wereNew England rural living, baseball, and how work brings meaning to ordinary life. He was considered a master both of receivedforms andfree verse, and a champion of the art of revision, for whom poetry is a craft, not merely a mode of self-expression.[18]
In addition to his poetry collections, Hall wrote children's books (notablyOx-Cart Man, which won theCaldecott Medal), several memoirs (such asString Too Short to be Saved,Life Work, andUnpacking the Boxes), and a number of plays.[19] He also turned his hand to reviews, criticism, textbooks, sports journalism, and biographies. He devoted substantial time to editing, for example, between 1983 and 1996, he oversaw publication of more than sixty titles for the University of Michigan Press. Starting in 1994, he was closely affiliated with theBennington College's graduate writing program, giving lectures and readings annually.[20]
Among Hall's many honours and awards were: theLamont Poetry Prize forExiles 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), theLenore Marshall Poetry Prize (1987), theNational Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry (1988), the NBCC Award (1989), theLos Angeles Times Book Prize in poetry (1989), and theFrost Medal (1990). He was nominated for theNational Book Award on three occasions (1956, 1979 and 1993). In 1994, he received theRuth Lilly Poetry Prize for his lifetime achievement.
For five years (1984–89), Hall wasPoet Laureate of his home state,New Hampshire. He was subsequently appointed the fourteenthU.S. Poet Laureate, succeedingTed Kooser.[21] He began serving on October 1, 2006, and was succeeded the following year byCharles Simic.[22] At the time of his appointment, Hall was profiled in an episode ofThe News Hour with Jim Lehrer which aired on October 16, 2006. Hall was awarded the 2010National Medal of Arts by PresidentBarack Obama.[23]
Hall's penultimate work is a 2018 recording of an eleven-song cycle on the topic of mortality, entitled "Mortality Mansions: Songs of Love and Loss After 60."[24] The poems/songs are written and read by Hall; the music is by Grammy Award-winning composerHerschel Garfein.[25]
His last bookA Carnival of Losses: Essays Nearing Ninety was published on July 10, 2018.
Hall was the subject of a short documentary by Paul Szynol calledQuiet Hours.[26] He also appeared inKen Burns's 1994 documentary on baseball.[27]
Hall was the subject of "Great Gig in the Sky," the 5th track ofRoger Waters' albumThe Dark Side of the Moon Redux, released on October 6th, 2023. The song discusses Hall's death, in which his assistant, Kendel Currier, contacts Waters informing him that Hall is in the hospital with sinus cancer. The song continues, eventually revealing that an estate sale was organized for the Eagle Pond Farm, where Waters requested "a couple of bale hooks and some baling twine from the barn." The lyrics refer to Hall's "red chair" - although his chair, famously, was blue. Whether this is a mistake or artistic licence is unclear. The song ends with "Well, R.I.P., Donald Hall."[28]
Hall lived at Eagle Pond Farm in Wilmot, New Hampshire, a small town inMerrimack County.[8] He was married to poet and authorJane Kenyon (1947–1995) for 23 years and lived with her until her death.[29]
Donald Hall died on June 23, 2018, at the age of 89, at his home in Wilmot.[30]
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