The Back Chamber

by Hall, Donald

• ISBN13: 9780547645858
• ISBN10: 0547645856
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-09-13
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Summary

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 Chamberis 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.

Excerpts

The Things

When I walk in my house I see pictures,
bought long ago, framed and hanging
—de Kooning, Arp, Laurencin, Henry Moore—
that I’ve cherished and stared at for years,
yet my eyes keep returning to the masters
of the trivial—a white stone perfectly round,
tiny lead models of baseball players, a cowbell,
a broken great-grandmother’s rocker,
a dead dog’s toy—valueless, unforgettable
detritus that my children will throw away
as I did my mother’s souvenirs of trips
with my dead father, Kodaks of kittens,
and bundles of cards from her mother Kate.

Love’s Progress

When love empties itself out,
it fills our bodies full.

For an hour we lie twining
pulse and skin together

like nurslings who sigh
and doze, dreamy with milk.


Ruins

Snow rises as high as my windows. Inside by the fire
my chair is warm, and I remain compounded of cold.

It is unthinkable that we will not touch each other again.

As the barn’s bats swoop, vastation folds its wings
over my chest to enclose my rapid, impetuous heart.

It is ruinous that we will not touch each other again.

Ten miles away, snow falls on your clapboard house.
You play with your children in frozen meadows of snow.