A long career in letters, spanning some 40-odd years, has led Hall
to this intense collection in which he suffers quite publicly the
loss of his wife Jane Kenyon, who died from leukemia in her
mid-40s. Compulsive in the details of her long illness, her
chemotherapy, her operations, and her deathbed, Hall also writes
ten or so letters to her after her death, marking the seasons and
holidays with memories, and reports on their dog, cat, relatives,
and house. "Her Long Illness," which takes up much of the volume,
repeatedly remarks on Kenyon's chemo-induced baldness, and
chronicles her bouts of nausea. Hall records Jane's bravery, his
own anxious solicitude, and the eventual decision to die at home,
days of delusions and incontinence over which Hall lingers. Other
poems in this mawkish collection witness the deaths of both their
mothers, but the best, "Without," breaks from Hall's monotonous
proselike verse into an unpunctuated word-hoard that reflects a
year of unpunctuated sorrow. However therapeutic, these
embarrassingly maudlin poems further testify to a marriage
celebrated by Bill Moyers on PBS, but they have negligible value as
art. (Kirkus Reviews)
Donald Hall's poignant and courageous poetry speaks of the death of the magnificent, humorous, and gifted Jane Kenyon. Hall speaks to us all of grief, as a poet lamenting the death of a poet, as a husband mourning the loss of a wife. Without is Hall's greatest and most honorable achievement-his gift and testimony, his lament and his celebration of loss and of love.
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