{"id":21196,"date":"2018-06-29T12:40:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T16:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=21196"},"modified":"2018-06-29T13:55:57","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T17:55:57","slug":"another-old-poet-has-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2018\/06\/29\/another-old-poet-has-died\/","title":{"rendered":"Another old poet has died"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Donald<\/a>

Donald Hall, 14th U.S. Poet Laureate, 2006-2007. Photo: Library of Congress<\/p><\/div>\n

The poet Donald Hall died this week. Never say he “passed away;” he loathed euphemism. Though we never met except as a reader does, upon the page, I felt a kindred spirit at work in him. Being the age of my father, you might say Hall was the sort I wanted to be when I grew up – should that day ever come.<\/p>\n

I liked his dedication to place, firmly planted as he was upon the farm, Eagle Pond, where his great-grandfather settled in 1865. And I loved the clear intent to communicate in ordinary language to ordinary people that his work displays. He believed that plain language sufficed to convey the most complex mixtures of thought and emotion.<\/p>\n

“Everything important always begins from something trivial,” Hall said. Though he often achieved it, he did not insist on depth as a key value for individual works of art. To be beautiful was sufficient to justify any poem. And as I age myself, I appreciate being witness to his own journeys through love and loss, and to his ripening acceptance of the necessity of mortality, even his own. As a writer he said, “I expect my immortality will last about six seconds after my funeral.” In that, I expect, he is incorrect.<\/p>\n

Here’s a poem for Donald Hall.<\/p>\n

Another old poet has died<\/strong><\/p>\n

for Donald Hall<\/em><\/p>\n

Another old poet has died, no surprise,
\nbeing made of meat, not stone.<\/p>\n

But such is death doubled, taking
\nwhat unpenned works with him.<\/p>\n

The reader must begin again, seeking
\nsome younger and stranger voice<\/p>\n

that might elicit from him a grunt
\nin the silence of the library,<\/p>\n

that might make him whisper
\nin wonder, “How perfect, how true.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The poet Donald Hall died this week. Never say he “passed away;” he loathed euphemism. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6128],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21196"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21211,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21196\/revisions\/21211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}