Best Selling Books by Donald Hall

Hall''s bestselling collection ever speaks of the death of his wife--his gift and testimony, his lament, and his celebration of loss and love.

"With The One Day, this is his best work, a modest, skeptical, and brave poetry that embodies something essential about this late American century." — Harvard Review This is Donald Hall''s most advanced work, extending his poetic reach even beyond his recent volumes. Conflict dominates this book, and conflict unites it. Hall takes poetry as an instrument for revelation, whether in an elegy for a (fictional) contemporary poet, or in the title series of poems, whose form imitates the first book of the Odes of Horace. The book''s final section, "Extra Innings," moves with poignancy to questions about the end of the game. "A stunning volume of testamentary verse . . . an often perfect American blend of rue and buoyancy, narrative verve and grace." — The New Yorker "Donald Hall is our finest elegist. The Museum of Clear Ideas is as original, idiosyncratic, and un-museumlike a poetic work as we are likely to see for a long time to come." —Richard Tillinghast, The New Criterion "Hall''s poems make ''durable relics'' of late twentieth-century life in much the same way that Byron''s Don Juan does for the early nineteenth. The ''clear ideas,'' however, are timeless." — Beloit Poetry Journal "These are some of the darkest lines Donald Hall has ever composed. They move through aching poignancy through illness diagnosed, sorrow, and poignant revelation, yet the final chord is not one of despair." —Robert Taylor, Boston Globe "A collection of powerful new poems . . . Hall''s voice is more mature and classically spare than ever, offering revelatory glimpses of wisdom." — Publishers Weekly "A brilliantly inventive tour de force . . . A significant and engaging book." — Library Journal

This collection brings together for the first time all of Hall''s writing on Eagle Pond Farm, his ancestral home in New Hampshire. It includes "Seasons at Eagle Pond" and "Here at Eagle Pond," the poem RDaylilies on the Hill, S and other essays.

This collection drawn from more than forty years of the poet''s work is "a superb introduction to newcomers and a sumptuous offering to familiars" ( Publishers Weekly). Former US Poet Laureate Donald Hall has been celebrated with numerous awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Medal of the Arts. This volume collects some of Hall''s finest short poetry written between 1947 and 1990. Here are poems of landscape and love, of dedication and prophecy. "Our delight is in following an exceptional poet''s growth and depth as he emerges with a richly playful but consummately serious voice." — Publishers Weekly

Winner of the Caldecott Medal Thus begins a lyrical journey through the days and weeks, the months, and the changing seasons in the life of one New Englander and his family. The oxcart man packs his goods - the wool from his sheep, the shawl his wife made, the mittens his daughter knitted, and the linen they wove. He packs the birch brooms his son carved, and even a bag of goose feathers from the barnyard geese. He travels over hills, through valleys, by streams, past farms and villages. At Portsmouth Market he sells his goods, one by one - even his beloved ox. Then, with his pockets full of coins, he wanders through the market, buying provisions for his family, and returns to his home. And the cycle begins again. "Like a pastoral symphony translated into picture book format, the stunning combination of text and illustrations recreates the mood of 19-century rural New England."—The Horn Book

The f ormer 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.

Author relates how his life is modeled on his family''s lives of work, solitude, love, and devotion to craft.

Twelfth book by the American author, featuring the autobiographical title work; a memorial to his wife, poet Jane Kenyon who died in 1995; and two other poems with thematic connections to his earlier works.

Co-authored by two esteemed writers, "Writing Well," is a beautifully-written and thoroughly readable guide to the craft of writing prose. This concise, lively text covers all aspects of writing but is best known for its signature chapters on words, sentences, and paragraphs. Going beyond the basics of composition, the text teaches originality and elegance in writing encouraging students to develop their own written voice. Sample student papers including several works-in-progress - allow students to learn the writing process through the work of their peers. A brief handbook section rounds out the coverage.

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.

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

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 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 compelling collection of essays on the state of contemporary poetry

A collection of essays by contemporary American poets on the subject of their art