[New-Poetry] More thoughts on Hall

Sat Jun 17 17:21:18 EDT 2006

Yep, broad range, all right.  But one thing I must say for Hall--he actually is on record as having noticed visual poetry.  He may be the only poet who became poet laureate who has.  He didn't think much of it, of course.  I don't recall the details, but I'm pretty sure he got into an assemblage of Richard Kostelanetz's that was devoted to visual poetry.  An assemblage (in the case) is a publication compiled from pages sent in by contributors.  Could be poetry, essays, whatever.  An editor gets 100 copies of each contributor's work, say, then makes a hundred copies of the publication.  Representation in the publication is automatic if you send in the required copies.  Contributors get paid with a copy.  The mainstream ignores the publication.  That Hall was involved in such a thing--after he was fairly well known--is a big point in his favor.

--Bob G.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Graham 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;Views 
  Sent: Saturday, June 17, 2006 4:17 PM
  Subject: [New-Poetry] More thoughts on Hall

  On Jun 16, 2006, at 5:35 PM, JforJames at aol.com wrote:

    David, first off, I have no problem with the Donald Hall as Poet
    Laureate. It is amazing it has taken so long for him to get a turn.
    But, it's funny, I like to read Hall's criticism, but his poetry
    is not the kind of work I'm drawn to. I also think it's telling that
    despite his connections and "verseitality," shall we say,
    he's never on the tip of one's tongue when thinks to name
    the best of our living poets. (Opinion, anecdotal, for sure)

    But what poems (or poem) strike(s) you as 'signature
    and defining', a worthy anthology piece, through and through?
    Finnegan

  It's true that Hall's reputation as poet has often been overshadowed by his reputation as a literary journalist, editor, and performer.  He's one of the best readers-aloud I've ever heard--one thing that will serve him well as poet laureate.  I hope he gets himself on NPR and PBS a lot.  

  I also have found his criticism very nourishing and inspiring.  He's a wonderful close reader as well as provocateur and literary historian.  Among his many virtues as a critic, he's been very willing to admit mistakes, revise opinions, and take stabs at sacred cows.  Near the ends of their distinguished careers, both Robert Lowell and Robert Penn Warren were mercilessly skewered by Hall for slack and pompous writing--this at a time when few critics dared to say anything negative; when both elders were mostly basking in adulation and picking up awards.  Meanwhile, Hall often attempted to stir up the reputations of poets who had not been given their due, such as Robert Francis and Thomas McGrath.  

  Also, during those years when his best friend Robert Bly was throwing out many babies with the bathwater, Hall went right on praising the poetry of E. A. Robinson, Andrew Marvell, and Geoffrey Hill alongside Russell Edson, Whitman, and Lorca.  

  I also am more than a little in awe of Hall's versatility.  I recall that one of the many literature anthologies he edited carried a blurb noting that he's the only major anthologist to have published original work in all the genres he edits.  I'm not sure I've seen a novel by Hall, but everything else, yes:  poetry, literary criticism, drama, short stories, personal essays, memoirs, biography, journalism, children's lit, pedagogy, sportswriting, etc.

  The poetry, as I noted earlier, is very difficult to categorize.  In his 60-plus year career, he's been an academic formalist, a deep image surrealist, a Freudian confessionalist, a folksy narrative poet, a satirist, a Christian devotionalist, and a modernist epic poet.  He has published sprawling Whitmanic stuff and Swiftian epigrams and everything in between.  I imagine that one reason his purely poetic reputation has suffered a bit as compared to some peers has been that he's been such a chameleon.   It could be said, too, that his broad range brings with it a certain amount of unevenness of quality, as one might expect.

  Personally, I think Hall's got more than his share of fine poems in nearly every mode.  In his formalist mode, poems like "My Son My Executioner" and "Christmas Eve at Whitneyville" stand out.  During his imagist moments he has written quite a lot of good ones.  Some favorites of mine would include "The Town of Hill," "The Man in the Dead Machine," "The Wreckage," and "The Long River."  In contrast, I'm not too fond of his more surreal efforts during his "Alligator Bride" period; and a good friend of mine says that the one thing he can't stand is when Hall tries to be funny.  ("O Cheese," etc.)  And I'm sorry to say that many--not all--of his Jane Kenyon elegies have struck me as sentimental and slackly crafted, alas.

  Many readers feel he really came into his own in the 1970s with the long-lined, nostaligic, exuberantly pell-mell poems of *Kicking the Leaves*, particularly the title poem of that book.  He's mined that vein a lot in the past 30 years, of course.  I like them, too, but even better, in my view, are some of his dramatic monologues, such as "Merle Bascom's .22."  

  Those who haven't read his fascinating book-length poem *The One Day* will find that it constitutes a good argument against the reductive view of Hall as a rural nostalgist and sentimental lyricist.  

  Tip of the iceberg here, really. . . .

  ==========================================

  David Graham

  grahamd at ripon.edu

  Home Page:

  http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html

  Poetry Library:

  http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

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