Donald Hall

Mon., April 16, 6:30 p.m., free, registration required, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk

by Mary Wilson

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Published: Apr 10, 2007

reading

In 1989, current Poet Laureate Donald Hall was none too thrilled about the public perception of poetry in America. "It is universally agreed that no one reads it," he wrote in Harper's Magazine. "It is universally agreed that the nonreading of poetry is (a) contemporary and (b) progressive." To the contrary, he claimed in the essay, poetry has always attracted a faithful audience, and the 79-year-old Hall — best described as a people's poet, Frostian and baseball enthusiast who lives on a farm in New Hampshire — has had little trouble finding his own. His simple, conversational writing style immediately engages the reader: "Looking through boxes/ In the attic of my mother's house in Hamden/ I find a model airplane" begins one poem from last year's White Apples and the Taste of Stone. Hall published his first poem at the age of 16, and has since knocked out 18 collections of poetry, in addition to children's books, short stories, plays and prose. He will read at Penn as part of the Kelly Writers House's annual Fellows Program.

Mon., April 16, 6:30 p.m., free, registration required, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-9749, www.writing.upenn.edu/~wh.

 

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