The Back Chamber

By Donald Hall

2011

First Published

3.89

Average Rating

Number of Pages

2H55M

Audio Length

The first full-length volume of poems in a decade by former poet laureate of the United States Donald Hall In The Back Chamber, Donald Hall illuminates the evocative, iconic objects of deep memory—"a cowbell," "a white stone perfectly round," "a three-legged milking stool"—that serve to foreground the rich meditations on time and mortality that run through his remarkable new collection. While Hall’s devoted readers will recognize many of his long-standing preoccupations—baseball, the family farm, love, sex, and friendship—what will strike them as new is the fierce, pitiless poignancy he reveals as his own life’s end comes into view. The Back Chamber is far from being death-haunted but rather is lively, irreverent, sexy, hilarious, ironic, and sly—full of the life-affirming energy that has made Donald Hall one of America’s most popular and enduring poets.

Avg Rating

3.89

Number of Ratings

174

5 STARS

26%

4 STARS

42%

3 STARS

26%

2 STARS

1 STARS

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Author

Donald Hall

Author · 51 books

Donald Hall was an American poet, writer, editor and literary critic. He began writing as an adolescent and attended the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference at the age of sixteen—the same year he had his first work published. Donald Hall published numerous books of poetry. Besides poetry, Donald Hall wrote books on baseball, the sculptor Henry Moore, and the poet Marianne Moore. He was also the author of children's books. Hall edited more than two dozen textbooks and anthologies. His honors include two Guggenheim fellowships, the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost Silver medal, a Lifetime Achievement award from the New Hampshire Writers and Publisher Project, and the Ruth Lilly Prize for poetry. Hall also served as Poet Laureate of New Hampshire from 1984 to 1989. In December 1993 he and his wife poet Jane Kenyon were the subject of an Emmy Award-winning Bill Moyers documentary, "A Life Together." In the June 2006, Hall was appointed the Library of Congress' fourteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.