The Selected Poems of Donald Hall by Donald Hall (PDF)

Description

Former poet laureate Donald Hall selects the essential work from a moving and brilliant life in poetry.Long-Listed for the 2016 National Book Award Donald Hall was an American master, one of the nation’s most beloved and accomplished poets. Here, in his eighties, having taken stock of the body of his work—rigorous, gorgeous verse that is the result of seventy years of “ambition and pleasure”—he strips it down. The Selected Poems of Donald Hall reflects the poet’s handpicked, concise selection, showcasing work rich with humor and eros and “a kind of simplicity that succeeds in engaging the reader in the first few lines” (Billy Collins). From the enduring “My Son My Executioner” to “Names of Horses” to “Without,” Donald Hall’s best poems deliver “a banquet in the mouth” (Charles Simic) and an “aching elegance” (Baltimore Sun). For the first-time reader or an old friend, these are, above all others, the poems to read, reread, and remember. “However wrenching [Hall’s poems] may be from line to line, they tell a story that is essentially reassuring: art and love are compatible, genius is companionable, and people stand by one another in the end” (New York Times Book Review).

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: From the Inside Flap “When I was twelve I wrote my first poem, and by fourteen I decided that’s what I’d do my whole life. I don’t regret it.” — from the afterword by Donald Hall Donald Hall is an American master, one of the nation’s most beloved and accomplished poets. Now in his eighties, having taken stock of the body of his work—rigorous, gorgeous verse that is the result of seventy years of “ambition and pleasure”—he strips it down. The Selected Poems of Donald Hall reflects the poet’s handpicked, concise selection, showcasing work rich with humor and eros and “a kind of simplicity that succeeds in engaging the reader in the first few lines” (Billy Collins). From the enduring “My Son My Executioner” to “Names of Horses” to “Without,” Donald Hall’s best poems deliver “a banquet in the mouth” (Charles Simic) and an “aching elegance” (Baltimore Sun). For the first-time reader or an old friend, these are, above all others, the poems to read, reread, and remember. From the Back Cover Gold Pale gold of the walls, gold of the centers of daisies, yellow roses pressing from a clear bowl. All day we lay on the bed, my hand stroking the deep gold of your thighs and your back. We slept and woke entering the golden room together, lay down in it breathing quickly, then slowly again, caressing and dozing, your hand sleepily touching my hair now. We made in those days tiny identical rooms inside our bodies which the men who uncover our graves will find in a thousand years, shining and whole. About the Author DONALD HALL (1928-2018) served as poet laureate of the United States from 2006 to 2007. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a recipient of the National Medal of the Arts, awarded by the president. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. My Son My Executioner My son, my executioner, I take you in my arms, Quiet and small and just astir And whom my body warms. Sweet death, small son, our instrument Of immortality, Your cries and hungers document Our bodily decay. We twenty-five and twenty-two, Who seemed to live forever, Observe enduring life in you And start to die together. The Sleeping Giant a hill in Connecticut The whole day long, under the walking sun That poised an eye on me from its high floor, Holding my toy beside the clapboard house I looked for him, the summer I was four. I was afraid the waking arm would break From the loose earth and rub against his eyes A fist of trees, and the whole country tremble In the exultant labor of his rise; Then he with giant steps in the small streets Would stagger, cutting off the sky, to seize The roofs from house and home because we had Covered his shape with dirt and planted trees; And then kneel down and rip with fingernails A trench to pour the enemy Atlantic Into our basin, and the water rush, With the streets full and all the voices frantic. That was the summer I expected him. Later the high and watchful sun instead Walked low behind the house, and school began, And winter pulled a sheet over his head. The Lone Ranger Anarchic badlands spread without a road, And from the river west no turned-up loam; No farmer prayed for rain, no settler’s horse But one time blundered riderless to home. Unfriendly birds would gather in the air, A circling kind of tombstone. As for the law, No marshal lived for long unless he could Defeat his mirror’d image to the draw. So now he rode upon a silver horse. He stood for law and order. Anarchy Like flood or fire roared through every gate But he and Tonto hid behind a tree And when the bandits met to split the loot, He blocked the door. With silver guns he shot The quick six-shooters from their snatching hands And took them off to jail and let them rot. For him the badlands were his mother’s face. He made an order where all order lacked From Hanged Boy Junction to the Rio Grande. Why did he wear a mask? He was abstract. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I like Donald Hall’s work, though I don’t think it truly great. His most beautiful work, at least to my knowledge, is the amazing prose work on 4 poets, Ezra POUND, TS Eliot, Robert Frost, and Dylan Thomas (there is a newer revision which includes 3 other poets, which I’ve not read). The empathy and perception is wonderful. It’s a book I’d recommend to anyone with an interest in poetry. This book of Selected Poems is a fine addition which will help us understand where Hall was coming from. His poems after his wife’s death are especially moving.

⭐These selected poems weave through a heartbreaking arc of Hall’s works.Beautiful collection of a masterful poet.

⭐Well done compilation. Some of his masterpieces….others not my favorites, but still a welcome part of my collection.

⭐Good group of poems by a master

⭐BEAUTIFUL. Poignant. May he rest in peace.

⭐This is a great sampling of Donald Hall’s work.

⭐An excellent sampling by one of the great American poets of the 20th and 21st centuries.

⭐One of the great poets of our time. Mr. Hall hits every word right.

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