New Releases by Donald Hall

The true story of how a married couple packed up a tiny cargo van with a bed and camping gear and hit the road. Traveling and camping in the van across 19 states and one international border, we found adventure, challenge, and much, much more. #vanlife: Spiritual Lessons from Life on the Road is the story of two travelers, two dogs, one tiny van, and a spiritual journey. Each road, state and campsite held new lessons on history, geography, and faith - lessons which transformed us in mind, body, and spirit.

A spirited defense of the vitality of contemporary poetry.

"These vivid New Hampshire farm sketches from Hall''s well-spent youth--all written when he was full-grown--are as much attuned to the supple and enticing utilities of language as they are grounded in a vanished time which may, at a glimpse, seem simple, but were complex and rich and not simple at all."--Richard Ford This is a collection of story-essays diverse in subject but united by the limitless affection the author holds for the land and the people of New England. Donald Hall tells about life on a small farm where, as a boy, he spent summers with his grandparents. Gradually the boy grows to be a young man, sees his grandparents aging, the farm become marginal, and finally, the cows sold and the barn abandoned. But these are more than nostalgic memories, for in the measured and tender prose of each episode are signs of the end of things: a childhood, perhaps a culture. In an Epilogue written for this edition, Donald Hall describes his return to the farm twenty-five years later, to live the rest of his life in the house that held a box of string too short to be saved.

"Conversations with Donald Hall offers a unique glimpse into the creative process of a major American poet, writer, editor, anthologist, and teacher. The volume probes in depth Hall''s evolving views on poetry, poets, and the creative process over a period of more than sixty years. Donald Hall (1928-2018) reveals vivid, funny, and moving anecdotes about T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and the sculptor Henry Moore; he talks about his excitement on his return to New Hampshire and the joys of his marriage with Jane Kenyon; and he candidly discusses his loss and grief when Kenyon died in 1995 at the age of forty-seven. The thirteen interviews range from a detailed exploration of the composition of "Ox Cart Man" to the poems that make up Without, an almost unbearable poetry of grief that was written following Jane Kenyon''s death. The book also follows Hall into old age, when he turned to essay writing and the reflections on aging that make up Essays after Eighty. This moving and insightful collection of interviews is crucial for anyone interested in poetry and the creative process, the techniques and achievements of modern American poetry, and the elusive psychology of creativity and loss"--

The essays in Fathers Playing Catch with Sons are a wonderful mixture of reminiscence and observation, of baseball and of fathers and sons, of how a game binds people together and bridges generations. In the pantheon of great sports literature, not a few poets have tried their hand at paying tribute to their love affair with the game--Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, and William Carlos Williams among them. This elegant volume collects Donald Hall''s prose about sports, concentrating on baseball but extending to basketball, football and Ping-Pong.

The former U.S. poet laureate presents the essential work from across his long and celebrated career in this sweeping collection. For decades, Donald Hall produced a body of work that established him as one of America’s most significant—and beloved—poets of his generation. Celebrated for his plainspoken yet evocative imagery and his stirring explorations of bucolic life, Hall won numerous awards, including the Robert Frost Medal, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the National Medal of Arts. When Hall reached his eighties, his health began to decline, and he announced that the ability to write poems has “abandoned” him. Looking back over his astonishingly rich body of work, Hall hand-picked his finest and most memorable poems for this final, concise, and essential volume.

A former poet laureate presents a new collection of essays delivering an unexpected view from the vantage point of very old age.

Donald Hall draws on his own childhood memories and gives himself the thing he most wanted but didn''t get as a boy: a Christmas at Eagle Pond. It’s the Christmas season of 1940, and twelve-year-old Donnie takes the train to visit his grandparents'' place in rural New Hampshire. Once there, he quickly settles into the farm’s routines. In the barn, Gramp milks the cows and entertains his grandson by speaking rhymed pieces, while Donnie’s eyes are drawn to an empty stall that houses a graceful, cobwebby sleigh. Now Model A''s speed over the wintry roads, which must be plowed, and the beautiful sleigh has become obsolete. When the church pageant is over, the gifts are exchanged, and the remains of the Christmas feast put away, the air becomes heavy with fine snowflakes—the kind that fall at the start of a big storm—and everyone wonders, how will Donnie get back to his parents on time?

The revered American Poet Laureate reflects on the meaning of work, solitude, and love with “extraordinary nobility and wisdom” (The New York Times) When Donald Hall moved to his grandparents’ New Hampshire farm in 1975, his work as a writer and a life devoted to the literary arts must have seemed remote from the harsh physical labor of his ancestors. However, he reveals a similar kind of artistry in the lives of his grandparents, Kate and Wesley. From them, he learned that the devotion to craft—be it canning vegetables, writing poems, or carting manure—creates its own special discipline and an ‘absorbedness’ that no wage can compensate. In this “sustained meditation on work as the key to personal happiness” (Los Angeles Times), we see how the writer has modeled his own life on his family’s lives of work, solitude, and love. When Hall comes face to face with his own mortality halfway through writing this book, we understand both his obsession with work and its ultimate consolation.

The first full-length volume of poems in a decade by the former poet laureate of the United States In The Back Chamber, Donald Hall illuminates the evocative, iconic objects of deep memory—a cowbell, a white stone perfectly round, a three-legged milking stool—that serve to foreground the rich meditations on time and mortality that run through his remarkable new collection. While Hall’s devoted readers will recognize many of his long-standing preoccupations—baseball, the family farm, love, sex, and friendship—what will strike them as new is the fierce, pitiless poignancy he reveals as his own life’s end comes into view. The Back Chamber is far from being death-haunted, but rather is lively, irreverent, erotic, hilarious, ironic, and sly—full of the life-affirming energy that has made Donald Hall one of America’s most popular and enduring poets.

Former United States poet laureate Donald Hall reflects on his life, discussing his childhood in Connecticut, the works that influenced him, his education, his success and failures as a writer and father, his friendships, and other related topics.

Spanning the entire career of the celebrated American poet, a collection of 226 works represents sixty years of poetic endeavor, including recent poems and a CD containing readings by the author.

From the Publisher: Donald Hall''s celebrated book of poems Without was written for his wife, Jane Kenyon, who died in 1995. Hall returns to this powerful territory in The Best Day the Worst Day, a work of prose that is equally "a work of art, love, and generous genius" (Liz Rosenberg, Boston Globe). Jane Kenyon was nineteen years younger than Donald Hall and a student poet at the University of Michigan when they met. Hall was her teacher. The Best Day the Worst Day is an intimate account of their twenty-three-year marriage; nearly all of it spent in New Hampshire at Eagle Pond Farm-of their shared rituals of writing, close attention to pets and gardening, and love in the afternoon. Hall joyfully records Jane''s growing power as a poet and the couple''s careful accommodations toward each other as writers. This portrait of the inner moods of "the best marriage I know about," as Hall has written, is laid against the stark medical emergency of Jane''s leukemia, which ended her life in fifteen months. Hall shares with readers-as if we were one of the grieving neighbors, friends, and relatives-the daily ordeal of Jane''s dying, through heartbreaking and generous storytelling. The Best Day the Worst Day stands alongside Elegy to Iris as a powerful testimony to both loss and love.

A collection of stories by the former US poet laureate, “a first-rate work by an author whose control over the tools of his genre is impeccable” (Publishers Weekly). A contemplative selection of twelve short stories from the celebrated author Donald Hall, Willow Temple focuses on the effects of divorce, adultery, and neglect. Hall’s stories are reminiscent of those of Alice Munro and William Maxwell in their mastery of form and their ability to trace the emotional fault lines connecting generations. “From Willow Temple” is the indelible story of a child’s witness of her mother’s adultery and the loss that underlies it. Three stories present David Bardo at crucial junctures of his life, beginning as a child drawn to his parents’ “cozy adult coven of drunks” and growing into a young man whose intense first affair undergirds a lifelong taste for ardor and betrayal. In this superbly perceptive collection, Hall gives memorable accounts of the passionate weight of lives. “[Hall possesses] a consistent gift for delicate description.” —The New York Times Book Review “Hall is comfortable with small stages—a tavern, a summer music camp, a farm, an artist’s studio, a junior college classroom, a cemetery, a bakery. But the quiet dramas that boil up in such places . . . are never small.” —Chicago Tribune “Understated lyricism very much in what William Carlos Williams (whom Hall often resembles) called the ‘American grain.’ Moving and memorable.” —Kirkus Reviews “A writer who attains the same high level of the game in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.” —The Boston Globe “[Willow Temple] attests to Hall’s mastery as a storyteller, the prose lyrical and elegiac as he moving unfolds each character’s frailties.” —Ploughshares

Explores the history of theories of selfhood, from the Classical era to the present, and demonstrates how those theories can be applied in literary and cultural criticism. Donald E. Hall: * examines all of the major methodologies and theoretical emphases of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including psychoanalytic criticism, materialism, feminism and queer theory * applies the theories discussed in detailed readings of literary and cultural texts, from novels and poetry to film and the visual arts * offers a unique perspective on our current obsession with perfecting our selves * looks to the future of selfhood given the new identity possibilities arising out of developing technologies. Examining some of the most exciting issues confronting cultural critics and readers today, Subjectivity is the essential introduction to a fraught but crucial critical term and a challenge to the way we define our selves.

A master of American letters collects forty years of writings on poetry in one essential volume

The former US poet laureate delivers a book “filled with raw sexual disclosures, rowdy anger and a self-blasting mockery” (The New York Times). Donald Hall’s fourteenth collection opens with an epigraph from the Urdu poet Faiz: “The true subject of poetry is the loss of the beloved.” In that poetic tradition, as in The Painted Bed, the beloved might be a person or something else—life itself, or the disappearing countryside. Hall’s new poems further the themes of love, death, and mourning so powerfully introduced in his Without (1998), but from the distance of passed time. A long poem, “Daylilies on the Hill 1975-1989,” moves back to the happy repossession of the poet’s old family house and its history—a structure that “persisted against assaults” as its generations of residents could not. These poems are by turns furious and resigned, spirited and despairing—”mania is melancholy reversed,” as Hall writes in another long poem, “Kill the Day.” In this book’s fourth and final section, “Ardor,” the poet moves toward acceptance of new life in old age; eros reemerges. “More controlled, more varied and more powerful, this taut follow-up volume [to Without] 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.” —Publishers Weekly “A compelling, sometimes shocking, and certainly deeply moving depiction of bereavement.” —Poetry “Hall has continued growing as a poet, and his steady readers may consider this his finest collection . . . Bleakness and beauty characterize the reminiscent lyrics that follow, too, joined by a breathtaking bluntness.” —Booklist

In these tender essays, Hall shares his memories and thoughts on growing up in New Hampshire on his grandparent''s dairy farm, of the seasons, and of his connection to the land, his family, and his coming home.

A 112 page volume, containing a 27,000 word interview, with a career sketch, a comprehensive bibliography, and a representative selection of quotations from Hall''s critics and reviewers. Also included is Hall''s recent poem, Tidying. Hall comes across as a professional poet who has made the most of the institutional opportunities available in post-war America to build a career as writer and teacher. Twenty-two pages of closely printed bibliography attest to the scale and range of his work as an editor and anthologist ... Even-tempered and meticulous, he exemplifies a contented subservience to the work ethic. Poetry, for Hall, is a craft which can be laboured at in the expectation of success proportionate to investment of effort. He is as practical and dispassionate in his attitude to subject matter as to poetic form: both are to be extended in the interests of furthering the reach of his poetry, and if private experience is to be drawn on, it does not deserve any more excitable treatment than other topics. He, none the less, speaks at length about his personbal life in the interview, bringing a stoic grace to his account of the circumstances and aftermath of the death of his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon. ''Tidying'', the revealingly titled sample lyric, offers a characteristically exact meditation on that aftermath. Patrick Crotty, Times Literary Supplement, October 27th, 2000

From 1983 to 1998, poets Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon sent out a letterpress broadside poem each Christmas, printed by William Ewert of Concord New Hampshire. They were illustrated by Mary Azarian and Barry Moser, with calligraphy by R.P. Hale. In 1999, Wings Press collected these broadside poems and published them in a limited edition chapbook printed on linen paper. The cover stock--handmade by Austin, Texas, papermaker Kristin Kavanagh--incorporated red maple leaves from Eagle Pond, gathered by Donald Hall''s grandchildren on an autumn day in 1997. The cover was printed by Dr. Paul Christensen of College Station, Texas, using a 12x18 Chandler & Price sheet-fed letterpress; illustrations include wood cuts by Barry Moser and leaf prints made from leaves collected at Eagle Pond. Three hundred copies of Winter Poems from Eagle Pond were numbered, signed, and dated by the author. The book was designed and hand sewn by Wings Press publisher, Bryce Milligan, a long-time friend and correspondent of Hall''s. This is truly the perfect Christmas gift for any serious lover of poetry.

In the fall of 1909, Lucy gets an early start on making Christmas presents for her family and friends, which they will open at the church''s Christmas program.

If we believe that the most engaging people have eclectic interests, then Donald Hall is incontrovertibly our most engaging man of letters. Prize-winning poet, teacher, essayist, children''s book writer, Hall here reflects on some of the things he holds most dear: his family home at New Hampshire''s Eagle Pond, baseball, poetry, artists and writers named Henry (Moore, Adams, and James), trees, politics, graveyards, basketball, and reading out loud. Collected here for the first time are Hall''s reminiscences of time spent with the sculptor Henry Moore, appreciations of his sports heroes such as Bob Cousy, Red Auerbach, Carlton Fisk, and his insightful and inspiring readings of fellow poets, E. A. Robinson, Andrew Marvell, James Wright, and others. This undeniably eclectic mix is a celebration and catalog of a writer''s subjects. In Hall''s words, "The title should please not only for its prodigious procession of p''s but for bringing back memories of rote recitation standing in the third grade doing the multiplication tables, 7''s maybe, or maybe the principal products of Portugal." Hall''s dedication to the written word will be familiar to readers of his poetry and his autobiographical essay Life Work, a "sustained meditation on work as the key to personal happiness," according to the Los Angeles Times. Principal Products of Portugal gives Hall''s readers a fresh perspective on familiar subjects as well as a deeper appreciation for the making of a reader, writer, and poet.

The prize-winning poet’s collection of autobiographical poems is “the work of a master, all the more poignant for its frankness . . . in the face of tragedy” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). One of America’s most celebrated poets, Donald Hall was at the height of his powers when he wrote The Old Life. Intimate, anecdotal and often funny, these autobiographical poems follow Hall from his boyhood to his developing acquaintance with fellow poets—including seniors like Robert Frost and contemporaries like Robert Bly. They chronicle Hall’s growing into manhood, fatherhood, grandfatherhood, and a happy second marriage. In the final poem, “Without,” Hall laments the illness of his late wife, Jane Kenyon. “These autobiographical poems are free of self-pity, engagingly frank without being in any sense ‘confessional,’ and often wildly comical . . . All are first-rate.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Tells the story of the Graves Family Dairy, whose three horses pulled the wagons delivering milk to families in the years before trucks and shopping centers replaced them.

A boy meets the young Babe Ruth and along with his family follows the Babe''s long and illustrious career.

The story of the growth of a New Hampshire village from pre-history to the bicentennial celebration of its founding.

For Lucy Wells, who lives on a farm in New Hampshire, the summer of 1910 is filled with helping her mother can fruits and vegetables, enjoying the Fourth of July celebration, and other activities.