Post by aihughe38 on May 21, 2012 21:03:19 GMT -5
It is my privilege to introduce to you tonight’s reader, a person whose message and ideals are present not just in his poetry, but in his life. For this reason, please bear with me so I can provide a brief background of how our speaker’s life has influenced and shaped his work. The life of Donald Hall is one that was influenced and based around literature even at an early age. Hall was born in 1928 to a violent father and a mother who was not always mentally “present” on the surface. At 12 years old he read a piece of work by American poet Edgar Allen Poe, which created the inspiration to begin writing poetry before he even reached his teens as an outlet for the emotions that arose from his troubled family life. At the age of only 16 he attended the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s conference, where he made the acquaintance of Robert Frost, who taught literature at a college in the same area.
Frost’s simple yet direct poetry influenced much of Hall’s early work, and shaped the focus of his future works. He spent much of his time dedicated to describing the lifestyle at “home by fire’s light in November cold” typical of working-class citizens of New England. Hall spent most of his summers working at the farm of his great-grandfather, instilling in him a respect for the simple but arduous lives led by farmers and blue-collar workers. The independence and self-sustainment he saw in these people inspired him to focus many of his poems on stressing self- sustainment and –governance, and lived according to that mantra by refusing to pay taxes to support the Vietnam War. During that time period, Hall wrote about about the barbaric nature of humans and war, leading him to compare the destruction caused by humans to the consumption of a living animal in “Eating the Pig”; just like entire cities can be burned down in mere days, “Only five hours roasting, and this body so quickly swindles away to nothing.”
In 1972, while teaching at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Donald Hall married fellow poet Jane Kenyon. The relationship and love between the two would led to pain, however, when Kenyon passed away in 1995. The void that was left by her death reshaped the focus and style of Hall’s poetry, and his more recent works have moved away from the more simplistic and relaxed nature his poems generally assumed previously. Instead, they now often have an air of existentialism and take on the significance of love, hope, and even the worth of an individual life. In “Without”, the first book of poetry published by Hall after Kenyon’s death, he reflects “Remembered happiness is agony; so is remembered agony.”
His thoughts on how people deal with grief and the loss of loved ones are both words of wisdom and cautionary tales. Regardless of how much one has accomplished in their life or their love of another, nothing can permanently bind a person to the world; death is inevitable for all. For this reason, while Hall’s message is often one of a warning of the pain that love shall undoubtedly cause eventually, but also a cry of Carpe Diem. A life is only lived once, after all, so it is wise to live it to its fullest.
Now, please join me in welcoming the 14th Poet Laureate of the United States, Mr. Donald Hall.
Word Count - 575
Frost’s simple yet direct poetry influenced much of Hall’s early work, and shaped the focus of his future works. He spent much of his time dedicated to describing the lifestyle at “home by fire’s light in November cold” typical of working-class citizens of New England. Hall spent most of his summers working at the farm of his great-grandfather, instilling in him a respect for the simple but arduous lives led by farmers and blue-collar workers. The independence and self-sustainment he saw in these people inspired him to focus many of his poems on stressing self- sustainment and –governance, and lived according to that mantra by refusing to pay taxes to support the Vietnam War. During that time period, Hall wrote about about the barbaric nature of humans and war, leading him to compare the destruction caused by humans to the consumption of a living animal in “Eating the Pig”; just like entire cities can be burned down in mere days, “Only five hours roasting, and this body so quickly swindles away to nothing.”
In 1972, while teaching at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Donald Hall married fellow poet Jane Kenyon. The relationship and love between the two would led to pain, however, when Kenyon passed away in 1995. The void that was left by her death reshaped the focus and style of Hall’s poetry, and his more recent works have moved away from the more simplistic and relaxed nature his poems generally assumed previously. Instead, they now often have an air of existentialism and take on the significance of love, hope, and even the worth of an individual life. In “Without”, the first book of poetry published by Hall after Kenyon’s death, he reflects “Remembered happiness is agony; so is remembered agony.”
His thoughts on how people deal with grief and the loss of loved ones are both words of wisdom and cautionary tales. Regardless of how much one has accomplished in their life or their love of another, nothing can permanently bind a person to the world; death is inevitable for all. For this reason, while Hall’s message is often one of a warning of the pain that love shall undoubtedly cause eventually, but also a cry of Carpe Diem. A life is only lived once, after all, so it is wise to live it to its fullest.
Now, please join me in welcoming the 14th Poet Laureate of the United States, Mr. Donald Hall.
Word Count - 575