Donald Hall (Donald Andrew, Jr. Hall) Biography

American poet, essayist, and editor, born in New Haven, Connecticut, educated at Harvard University, Oxford University, where he won the Newdigate Prize for his poem ‘Exiles’, and Stanford University. He later became a professor at Michigan University. He has published poetry prolifically, from the more traditional metres, rhythms, and formalism of his early collections To the Loud Wind, and Other Poems (1955) and Exiles and Marriages (1955), to the freer forms of The Dark Horses (1958), poems about suburban life. There followed A Roof of Tiger Lilies (1964), the ‘deep-image’ inspired poems in The Alligator Bride (1969), The Yellow Room (1971), about a romance, and A Blue Wing: Selected Poems, 1964–1965 (1975). These poems demonstrate a concise exactness in their style. He has stated that ‘The listener doesn't have to understand this poem intellectually, but to enjoy it as a sensual object …’ In addition to poetry, he has written an autobiography, String too Short To Be Saved (1961), plays, and essays on such topics as poetry, Henry Moore, Marianne Moore, and how to write. He has also edited poetry anthologies, including the influential The Faber Book of Modern Verse (1965) and Contemporary American Poetry (1962; second edition 1972). He has acted as an editor on numerous journals and magazines, including the Paris Review (1953–62). More recent volumes of poetry are Brief Lives (1983), The One Day: A Poem in Three Parts (1988), and Old and New Poems (1990).