Poems
1993
What We Will Give Each Other
The blond boy in red shorts and sneakers, licking
A green popsicle,
And peeking up quietly into a blueberry bush:
That boy is my boy.
Stones are made and move.
The brown-haired, blue-shirted girl in bright
Yellow rainboots, laughing and looking for
Grasshoppers among the checkerberries:
That girl is my girl.
Water runs forever.
Love that dies in the ear is
Born in a crocus flower.
“Guided sometimes by an Oriental compression and serenity, sometimes by a Classical irony and learnedness, and nearly always by the practicality and patience of New England ruralism, the poems of What We Will Give Each Other accrue into a book of surprising depth, variety, and passion.”
—David Baker
“These poems are disciplined, clear-eyed and clear-headed like their Greek, Latin and Chinese forebears.”
—Sam Hamill
“Enjoyable, sharp-minded, genial, and nimble. . . .”
—Fred Chappell
“My favorite poems are ‘Spring, Sestius!’ and ‘Uncle Elwood.’ It’s pleasing to see a balance between classical allusion and typical Yankee skepticism.”
—Maxine Kumin
“‘The Poet’s Tea’ describes Hall’s unique blend of Frost and Catullus, Yankee simplicity and Mediterranean sensibility. . . . These are poems of quiet dignity and classical simplicity, balancing precise observation with a vital response to nature.”
—Paul Lizotte, Nashua (NH) Telegraph
“I particularly enjoyed the translations of poems of Catullus and Horace and bits of Aeschylus and Sophocles. [They] catch the spirit of them so well.”
—Nicholas Hammond, Editor Oxford Classical Dictionary
“Classically modest, but in no sense small, these poems show us what it is to live in an actual world of rocks and stones and trees, and they teach us what a single life can mean—that a single life can mean.”
—Joseph Duemer
64 pp, Paperback | ISBN 0-9636413-0-1|Price $9.95 | Free Shipping | 15% to ALS Association
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