Diane is Rounding-up at Random Noodling today.
Last night snow came to New England. I’ll mark it with New Hampshire treasure and former U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall’s poem “Blue Snow”. Last week Hall, author of the classic Ox Cart Man, read from his latest book of poems, The Back Chamber. He says whereas lines of poetry used to descend like meteor showers, poems aren’t coming to him nowadays. Hall calls The Back Chamber his last book of poetry, but if another comes up, he’ll not hammer it down.
Blue Snow
Pete Sullivan dropped by:
"Your barn needs work, and so do I."
Pete had the eye
To fix old boards with new
And keep the handy knotholes through
Which swallows flew.
Go to Poetry Daily to read the entire poem and another from Hall’s latest collection.
Here is a marvelous 3 minute video of Hall speaking from his home at Eagle Pond.
The Back Chamber; ISBN-13: 9780547645858
Showing posts with label Donald Hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Hall. Show all posts
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
layer by layer
Another foot of snow buries spring even deeper here in New Hampshire. I'm watching my potted tulip bulbs with longing, willing the green shoots to stretch. This is the season of literary deadlines for grants and conference submissions. Maybe the snow will melt as I push through the paper piles.
Our poetry group unpacked Donald Hall's "Mount Kearsage" last night. I love Donald Hall and remember years of reading Ox Cart Man and The Man Who Lived Alone.
Listening to the poet's reading on CD, we heard so clearly the assonance of repeated vowel sounds that create "Mount Kearsage's" near rhyme. Hall's personal connection to the mountain facing his front porch is visceral. He talks to it, calls it "you." Images of porch rocking and physical descriptions of the mountain balance its ephemeral qualities obscured by haze. The immortality of the mountain is in tension with the poet's own mortality.
You can hear Hall read his poem at the Library of Congress website.
www.loc.gov/today/pr/2006/more/MountKearsarge.mp3
"Mount Kearsarge"
This week we will transpose the structure of "Mount Kearsage" into a poem about our own strong images. The goal is to discover a response to them we may not have considered before - to unearth the qualities that make these images everlasting to us. Layer by layer, we will try to "write thick."
Our poetry group unpacked Donald Hall's "Mount Kearsage" last night. I love Donald Hall and remember years of reading Ox Cart Man and The Man Who Lived Alone.
Listening to the poet's reading on CD, we heard so clearly the assonance of repeated vowel sounds that create "Mount Kearsage's" near rhyme. Hall's personal connection to the mountain facing his front porch is visceral. He talks to it, calls it "you." Images of porch rocking and physical descriptions of the mountain balance its ephemeral qualities obscured by haze. The immortality of the mountain is in tension with the poet's own mortality.
You can hear Hall read his poem at the Library of Congress website.
www.loc.gov/today/pr/2006/more/MountKearsarge.mp3
"Mount Kearsarge"
This week we will transpose the structure of "Mount Kearsage" into a poem about our own strong images. The goal is to discover a response to them we may not have considered before - to unearth the qualities that make these images everlasting to us. Layer by layer, we will try to "write thick."
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