Book Description
The brilliant new collection from the Poet Laureate of the United States, with an audio cd of selections read by the author. Throughout his career, Donald Hall has garnered numerous accolades and honors, including the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, culminating in 2006 with his appointment as poet laureate of the United States. White Apples and the Taste of Stone collects more than two hundred poems from across sixty years of Halls celebrated career, and includes poems recently published in The New Yorker, the American Poetry Review, and the New York Times. It is Halls first selected volume in fifteen years, and the first to include poems from his seminal bestseller Without. Those who have come to love the work of Donald Hall throughout his storied career will welcome this vital and important addition to his body of work. For the uninitiated it is a spectacular introduction to this critically acclaimed and beloved poet. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A Hall of Surprises
To add to the ranks of the surprised ones... It was boringly browsing the other day through my landlady's bookshelves, and I found an intriguing volume of prose called "Seasons at Eagle Pond" by a name that rang a bell but didn't quite make it to my conscience... This was only a few weeks ago. I began an incessant search for Donald Hall's poems within my collection of anthologies, local libraries and the Internet. Then I purchased "White Apples and the Taste of Stone" and my embarrassment for not knowing Hall previously only yields now to the pleasure and comfort of having, at last, come across him. These are human poems; they speak to you and befriend you; later they may haunt you... Among them you will find pieces that are witty, fast, meditative, funny, horrific, mad and yes, very very sad. This collection exudes the world and vision of a keen observer of life. It will leave a reek of charged life around you! Simply great.

A lovely retrospective
Donald Hall, past Poet Laureate of the United States, has had a long and fruitful career. This compilation is well done - hardcover, good paper, clean printing and attractive typeface, and includes Hall's best work. His poems can make you laugh, or sigh, or weep. This is a "must have" for anyone who loves and values poetry.

On Donald Hall
Having met Donald Hall and reading his poems, I am convinced he is a modern day Robert Frost. If you love poetry read this book. If you love New England read this book. If you truly love life as Mr.Hall does, read this book!

Beauty and Power
I feel somewhat embarrassed to say that Donald Hall was not a poet I was familiar with until just recently.And what a great thing I have been missing.I realized that Donald Hall was in a very old anthology I have from 1963 called "The Modern Poets."There is a jaunty photo of him smoking a cigar.The Bio does not mention his wife Jane Kenyon.

What a powerful effect these poems had on me.The come alive in a way I cannot accurately describe.They bring me closer to things I seem to remember, and with simplicity and depth, deliver the earth to my feet.Don't take my word for it.Take a look into this world for yourself.

Even a Baseball Fan Will
Even a baseball fan , such as myself will love this collection of Poems.I knew Donald Hall from his baseball writings and love of the game.Now as U.S. poet laureate, I had to see more of hime as evidenced by this book.Not a one night read, but a pleasure to pick up and dwell on and savor slowly.
Ernie Grassey ... Read more

Amazon.com
Eagle Pond Farm, familiar even to casual readers of poet Donald Hall (author of 13 volumes of poetry spanning over 40 years), constitutes his spiritual and geographic center. He moved there permanently in 1975 after marrying the young and talented poet Jane Kenyon. His long relationship to Eagle Pond Farm and the creative haven the two poets created gives Without a special poignancy. It is where, in 1995, Jane Kenyon died.

The facts are hard but simple. In 1994, Jane Kenyon--who at 46 was beginning to enjoy the growing recognition of her work--was diagnosed with leukemia. Kenyon and Hall opted for the harrowing bone marrow transplant, to be performed in Seattle. It was not successful, and 12 weeks later, she was dead. Hall began drafting Without during the procedure and subsequent treatment, an act almost impossible to imagine--or perhaps for a poet, the only act possible in the face of what for most would be unspeakable. The magnitude of such suffering might indeed explain the collection's flatness of tone, as if grief can be touched only across great distances.

However restrained the pieces, Hall's gaze is fearless. Shifts in voice (he writes both in first and third person) create a tension that pulls the reader forward, as if compelled to consume this moving, raw account in one sitting. The quality of reader attention is more akin to what one gives a story. Narrative elements include a terse account of the bone-marrow transplant and Kenyan's subsequent radiation treatments ("It was as if she capped the Chernobyl pile with her body"), and it's here that the poems become almost unbearable to read.

Without captures the tedium of dying, jolted by surges of rage and "witless" love. Numbly, it lists the flinty details of Kenyon's last days, spent choosing the poems for her last volume, Otherwise: New & Selected Poems. It describes the moment of her dying in a way that makes one wonder if the ultimate experience of intimacy is to watch the beloved die, to be the one to close her eyes. "Back home from the grave," Hall writes toward the end of this volume, "behind my desk I made / a gallery of Janes," but it can be said that every poem presents a facet of his wife while dying, accruing finally to a gallery of love and grief.

There are some distinguishing jolts to our familiar concepts about death as in, for example, the poem showing the couple, with their minister, praying and holding hands. And when they prayed, "grace was evident / but not the comfort of mercy or reprieve / The embodied figure / on the cross still twisted under the sun." By and large, however, it's a volume not remarkable for bold imagery or shocking connections; rather for the expression of raw grief that follows, unwelcome, all of our necessary losses. --Hollis Giammatteo Book Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (16)

Very moving
This is a deeply personal, moving account of one man coming to terms with his wife's illness and her eventual death. His poetry is deeply affecting, beautiful, and poignant. I highly recommend this for anyone.

A Wonderful Memorial
I wanted to read this collection of poems because I was so moved by Mr. Hall's memoir of his life with Jane Kenyon, The Best Day The Worst Day.The poems here are inspired by the same sequence of events; that is, Ms. Kenyon's death from leukemia.This unity of purpose alone, so rare in poetry collections, gives the book incredible power.Of course, this unity is not enough.Fortunately, despite the sad theme, there are a number of wonderful poems here.

I found the poems in the first half of the book--those leading up to Ms. Kenyon's death--the best."Song for Lucy," "The Porcelain Couple," "The Ship Pounding," and, especially, "A Beard for Blue Pantry" and "Blues for Polly" very moving, filled with great images like "Jane made bread so honest/it once went blue in the pantry//overnight in a heat wave" (Pantry) and "She sang blue: soulful, erotic,/skeptical, knowing everything/turns out bad in the end."Not surprisingly, blue is a linking color here.

Mr. Hall also intersperses a poem, "Her Long Illness," throughout the first half of the book.It's a risky strategy but it works well.Some of the best lines in the book come in this poem.

I didn't feel the second half of the book, which focuses more on Mr. Hall's loneliness, stood up as well as the first.The title poem, the first of the aftermath poems, is the weakest in the book.There are some passages in the various "Letters" poems that make up most of the second half that are very nice (my favorite, from "Letter in the New Year": "If someone had told us then/you would die in nineteen years,/would it have sounded/like almost enough time?") but, for the most part, they are very uneven.I was also put off by some of the semi-profane and sexual language in some of these poems.Not that these experiences aren't appropriate but they didn't ring true with the rest of the work.

It may be that the first half has the advantage of the tension of Ms. Kenyon's illness which dissolves into a less satisfying depression and loneliness in the second half.Perhaps my knowledge of the memoir interfered somewhat with my reading of some of the poems.Still, as a whole, this is definitely an excellent collection.

Gripping tale of a great love told through poems
This book is considered to be one of the greatest poetic accomplishments in American history.Read it with a box of tissues.

"Dying is simple....What's worse is.....the seperation."
I heard Donald Hall read passages of Whitman's Leaves of Grass at the 2005 National Book Festival on the Mall in DC.I knew nothing of him, his work, or his love of Jane Kenyon. I did know his voice rang true to the soul I possess. I can still here his voice over the sound of helicopter blades that plagued the readings in each tent. Compelled to read his work I finally gave into the need to buy one of his works and so I bought three.

"Without" is a journey of loss. Each poem is a step during the journey of Jane Kenyon's illness, passing, and Donald Hall's experience of loss. His pain, confusion, and helplessness are mirrored in every line and in every word with in the pages of "Without".

By the time I got to page nine I was crying, not for Jane Kenyon but for Donald Hall. The book doesn't show case only loss but devotion. The memories he shares of Jane are clouded with the simple things that brought him contentment and careless pleasure. How often do you see the simple things in your life and overlook the pleasure that exists in the act of observation? Donald Hall looks back on the pleasure of contentment watching his wife taste the sauce that will be served with dinner and the act of bringing in groceries. He tells us of the ravishing beauty she grew into in her 40's. Donald Hall reminds us of hope with in the pages of "Without".

girldiver:)

Heartful and Heartfelt
In his book of poems "Without", Donald Hall weaves a lexicographic tribute to his late wife, and fellow poet, Jane Kenyon, and in turn, leaves the world a legacy of grief and honor.

I first heard of this book by listening to NPR's "This American Life" on a featured story about the couple. Donald himself read some of these poems, and I knew within a minute, I had to have this work.

As poets so meekly and admirably do, Donald Hall captures the moments of his wife's last days through her battle with leukemia. The poems are simple, attainable, and direct. He minces no words as he describes Jane's downfall. He poetry is both pure and chilling; you feel her loss, you feel her impact, you feel.

If you are considering purchasing this book, I may recommend you purchasingJane Kenyon's final book of poetry called "Otherwise". In a sense, they are companion pieces to each other, and in reading both you hear her voice, along with his, to make it theirs.

I highly recommend this book if you have ever lost someone, or want to understand the not understandable impact of losing someone. ... Read more

Book Description
This volume contains the finest short poetry Donald Hall has written, poems of landscape and love, of dedication and prophecy, poems that have won thousands of readers, as well as various prizes and honors. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A New England Poet
Donald Hall, who has recently been named poet laureate of the United States, has been compared to New England poet, Robert Frost.Much of his poetry has a "familiar" feel to it, though not derivative.He speaks as a child when describing the Sleeping Giant, a small mountain in Hamden, CT, where, if one is in the right spot, the head, chest and feet of the "giant" can be imagined.He grew up in Hamden, CT, but his grandfather's home in the New Hampshire mountains helped shape his view of life, as well.In "Old and New Poems" his changing viewes of life over the years are seen.

In the poem "1934" he reminds the reader of life during the Great Depression, and the fears it engendered.

His poetry reminds readers of ordinary day to day activities.He writes of his father and grandfather reminiscing "In the Kitchen of the Old House", where "his early death grew inside him, like snow piling on the grass".

"Old and New Poems" is very readable, and often autobiographical.I loved reading it.
Nancy Green ... Read more

Book Description
Distinguished poet Donald Hall reflects on the meaning of work, solitude, and love ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Hall's best book
I am a big fan of Donald Hall's writing, both poetry and prose. This is my favorite and the one that made me think the most.It allows one to put one's life in perspective, realize the importance of life and work.We all aren't as lucky as Hall has been to work at what we love, but the book makes you think about how work can become more worthwhile.Deep and enjoyable.

A Sense of Time, Place and Self
Reading this book is work -- in the Donald Hall definition, for to read it is to become absorbed in each word to the exclusion of all else.Hall writes of his ancestors, of the rocky farms of New England, a small dairy,his father's early death, his wife's gardening, and then quite suddenly ashis colon cancer recurs, of the possible end to life and the very prosaictasks of cancelling readings, putting papers in order for survivors. Throughout, he achieves a sense of time, place and self which crossesgenerations.He charts both the constants and the increasing changes ofthe farm which has been in his family for more than a hundred years and thecountry around it.Hall, like God, love and grace--all of which are foundin abundance in this book, abides.

A superbly crafted memoir of life, aging, and grieving.
Donald Hall's memoir, The Old Life, is beautifully crafted in prose form. It is full of personal recollections as well as literary references. It is intense, deeply personal, funny, and wonderfully readable. One has a very real sense of who Donald Hall is - his views of life, his passion for baseball and his family, his trials with his own ill health, his love for his wife, Jane Kenyon, also a poet, and his agonizing grief when she dies quite unexpectedly. A beautiful, poignant, literary triumph

Donald Hall's book is poetry at work, and working poetry.
Poet Donald Hall somehow manages to talk about the craft of writing and, even in prose, wondrously shapes a poetic work. This book is an excellent depiction of the author's life, as well as a fascinating historical account of Hall's life and background. Contrary to the popular romanticized view of writing or the "anyone can do it" mentality, Hall shows the reader just what his writing has entailed, and it is clearly WORK ... Read more

Book Description
A candid memoir of love, art, and grief from a celebrated man of letters, United States poet laureate Donald Hall

In an intimate record of his twenty-three-year marriage to poet Jane Kenyon, Donald Hall recounts the rich pleasures and the unforeseen trials of their shared life. The couple made a home at their New England farmhouse, where they rejoiced in rituals of writing, gardening, caring for pets, and connecting with their rural community through friends and church. The Best Day the Worst Day presents a portrait of the inner moods of "the best marriage I know about," as Hall has written, against the stark medical emergency of Jane's leukemia, which ended her life in fifteen months. Between recollections of better times, Hall shares with readers the daily ordeal of Jane's dying through heartbreaking but ultimately inspiring storytelling. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Best Day and Worst Day:Life with Jane Kenyan
Donald Hall's memoir of health and illness with his wife Jane Kenyon has stood in my mind years after I read this book.It is an understanding of issues in living through a bout of illness, of survival to regain health, or the fall when one loses the fight.

Above all the book is of a poet who loves another fellow poet.

But I think poetry is secondary to loving a wife who shared his home and passions for animals, people, words and social engagements to be with people who appreciated their love of literature and the love in the marriage.

Very moving memoir
I thought this book was a wonderful, loving tribute to the author's wife.:)

"the company of tears"
I recently finished reading Jane Kenyon's collected poems which left me missing her and wanting more. And so I picked up The Best Day The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon written by Kenyon's husband--the esteemed poet Donald Hall. While the subtitle of this book is "Life with Jane Kenyon," I would argue that it is not so much about Kenyon's life with Hall as it is about her death, her dying. Yes, Hall does recount memories and vignettes of their life together, particularly how it was they came to live in their beloved farmhouse in New Hampshire.

Mostly I found this touching book to be an exploration of a husband moving through the process of grief, of holding on, and of letting go. Throughout, Hall beautifully and matter-of-factly reveals what it feels like when the one you love dies, and what are those threads that carry you through to this end, and what are those threads that bind you to this life afterward:"Poetry gives the griever not release from grief but companionship in grief. Poetry embodies the complexity of feelings in their most intense and entangled, and therefore offers (over centuries, or over no time at all) the company of tears."

It breaks a poet's heart
I saw Donald Hall read at AWP almost a year ago and decided then that I had to have this book. I was moved to tears in the reading. I bought it and it took me a while to have the time to read it, and then a month and a half to read. It is not in anyway shape or form, easy to read. Not only is language dense and medical at points, but somehow each technical word is embedded in a love that is as strong 10 years after Jane Kenyon's death as I imagine it was at Hall and Kenyon's marriage 35 years ago. It a book that moves you to tears on almost every page. And not only is this written in tribute and memorial to a life of love, but it is a catalogue of life for popular and well respected poets. Writing habits, readings, trips, the things you write and do to have the money to write, the way that dedication is your life.

"The Utter Darkness He Desired"
Hall lifts off the ornate cover of his 27 year marriage to the poet Jane Kenyon, once his student at Michigan, to reveal some down home truths about her personality.It seems that Kenyon's depression made his life pretty bleak, for she might lash out at him as easily as she tormented herself with her vague phantoms of anxiety--all very real to her, of course, for drugs of the Prozac class had no effect on her unfortunately.So take it all in all whenever the family came to call they were never sure whether or not Jane was going to be her warm, friendly and sometimes bawdy self, or her other self, the tormented one who preferred to be "invisible."My hat is off to Donald Hall because even if she was great, it's not always easy to be around someone who's dour to that degree.

But Hall does not suffer in silence, and he lets us know that her famous friends, poets like Galway Kinnell and Liam Rector, also witnessed episodes of depression that were pretty chilling.There's a new book in which the friends give testimony to this effect, celebrating her life and work, yet not skimping on her acerbity and gloom.And yet they loved her!She must have had something.For me, "THE BEST DAY THE WORST DAY" was a bit of a tell-all, and has its exploitative moments like the recent book by Michael Bergin about Carolyn Kennedy.Why couldn't Hall have shown us more of the happy hours?Why alternate every chapter of her life with one of her dying?It smacks of something a poet might do, for effect, for formal reasons, rather than sitting back and thinking, "This will make my readers think that I valued her only when she was dying."

There's something of a Jane Kenyon industry right now, and this book and others like it will, of course, add bricks to the mortar.As we turn our love for Jane Kenyon's writing into an actual house of mourning, I find it hard to predict what will be next on the platter.I expect that somewhere, somebody is working on a volume of selected letters to go with the selected and collected poems we have already been given.The Bill Moyers film, oddly, already came out.It was one of the few things Jane Kenyon was happy about, for as Hall tells us sometimes work helped, and sometimes the occasional good news like getting the NEA award of the Guggenheim.Good for her.Everybody needs something. ... Read more

Book Description
Co-authored by two esteemed writers, Writing Well, is a beautifully-written and thoroughly readable guide to the craft of writing prose. This concise, lively text covers all aspects of writing but is best known for its signature chapters on words, sentences, and paragraphs. Going beyond the basics of composition, the text teaches originality and elegance in writing encouraging students to develop their own written voice. Sample student papers Ð including several works-in-progress - allow students to learn the writing process through the work of their peers. A brief handbook section rounds out the coverage. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent educational tool
I want to review this book even though I have a copy of the 1973 edition of this book only. Hall illuminates writing in a way that makes writing interesting. I've never considered myself a writer. Most of my educational as well as personal pursuits could be classified as "left-brained", and although I can appreciate good poetry and literature, I have maintained a disdain for attempting to produce either. Hall's writing pulled me in by explaining the elements of prose in a clear, understandable, and enjoyable way. For anyone who struggles with writing, or for anyone who has difficulty being motivated to improve their writing, this book is for you. This book puts even the fundamental parts of speech in a totally different light. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs look very different after reading this book! As a left-brained person, I used to like the concept of synonyms, never realizing that synonyms don't really exist! Who would have known that a word substituted for another word makes such a huge difference! Whether your writing is technical, poetic, or a mixture of the two, I believe this book can be a great benefit. ... Read more

Book Description
TO READ A POEM begins the study of poetry by examining whole poems, emphasizing the goal of reading is not the analysis of parts but the understanding of wholes. For a fuller definition of poetry's elements, later chapters concentrate on parts. Selections are frequently modern or contemporary, supplementing them with biographical notes on all poets. TO READ A POEM will help students read poetry with intelligence, gusto, and discrimination. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

THE HOW-TO FOR EVERYTHING POETRY - BRAVO!DONALD HALL
IF YOU WANT TO LEARN ABOUT POETRY, THIS IS THE BOOK FOR YOU.NOT ONLY IS IT INFORMATIVE, THE AUTHOR, DONALD HALL, WRITES BEAUTIFULLY AND DOES SO IN A WELL ORGANIZED MANNER.

YES, THIS BOOK IS EXPENSIVE, BUT MOST REALLY HIGH QUALITY THINGS ARE. YOU COULD PURCHASE TEN CHEAPER BOOKS FOR THE PURPOSE OF LEARNING POETRY, AND HAVE FAR LESS THAN WHAT IS IN THIS ONE BOOK.

I'D RECOMMEND YOU START READING ON THE FRONT COVER AND READ EVERY PAGE UNTIL YOU GET TO THE BACK COVER.THEN READ THE BOOK A SECOND TIME, AND THEREAFTER, FOR STUDY PURPOSES, OR ENJOYMENT; IT ALSO CONTAINS A WOUNDERFUL COLLECTION OF POEMS.

NOTE:THIS BOOK IS GETTING HARD TO COME BY---DON'T WAIT TOO LONG.

This Book is a Must for Anyone Who Lives Poetry
This book addresses the various aspects of poetry, as well as what makes a good poem.It presents attempts at defining poetry.

The reader is provided with poems by a broad selections of poets, with the date of thepoem and a succinct anecdote about the poet.

Best of all, there arequestions that guide the reader to reasonably interpret the poems.This ishelpful to the novice or to the expert.

I would certainly recommend thisconcise, yet highly valuable and detailed book about reading poetry.Itwill lead you to truly understand the poems presented and to develop theskills to read any poem.

Poetry affords us with crisp and detailedaccounts of our historical and immediate world.The imagery and otherpoetic techniques enhance our understanding of ourselves and others.

So,go for it.Read this book!View the world with a sharper lens.Expressyourself so another can relive your experiences through your words.

This Book is a Must for Anyone Who Lives Poetry
This book addresses the various aspects of poetry, as well as what makes a good poem.It presents attempts at defining poetry.

The reader is provided with poems by a broad selection of poets, with the date of thepoem and a succinct anecdote about the poet.

Best of all, there arequestions that guide the reader to reasonably interpret the poems.This ishelpful to the novice or the expert.

I would certainly recommended thisconcise, yet highly valuable and detailed book about reading poetry.Itwill lead you to truly understand the poems presented and to develop theskills to read any poem.

Poetry serves to afford us with crisp anddetailed accounts of our historical and immediate world.The imagery andother poetic techniques enhance our understanding of ourselves andothers.

So, go for it.Read this book! View the world with a sharperlens.Express yourself so another can relive your experiences through yourwords. ... Read more

Amazon.com
This collection stands as something of a tribute to Jane Kenyon, who died in 1995 at the age of 48. Otherwise contains 20 new poems plus selected works from her four previous collections. The situations from which her lively writing arise often came from her daily life in and around the New Hampshire farm where she lived with her husband. The simple settings provides fertile ground for her richness of language. "As late as yesterday ice preoccupied the pond--dark, half-melted, waterlogged. Then it sank in the night, one piece, taking winter with it. And afterward everything seems simple and good." Beautiful, gracious poetry.Book Description

Customer Reviews (6)

Great product & service
Book was received promptly and in new, perfect condition!
Thank you again for the great service.

Poetry for the human experience
It was this anthology of poetry that transformed my mother from a woman who dislikes poetry to a woman who reads it every day.I read her one poem and got her hooked.Jane Kenyen speaks directly to her reader, using simple images and plain language, capturing experiences that often feel familiar and sometimes reminding us of their meaning and significance.This is not poetry that could be shouted at a poetry slam or puzzled over by scholars looking for allusions to Sanskrit texts.This is poetry about our lives, about burying the cat, ironing a tablecloth, saying goodbye to guests, winter weather, faith, sadness, and love.I love poetry, but sometimes it feels daunting and inaccessible.Jane Kenyon writes like I am her guest, sitting at her kitchen table, and she has a moment to share.

Bright Stars on a Winter Night
Jane Kenyon's OTHERWISE is perhaps the best collection of American poetry in the past decade.With her accessible and illuminating poems, Ms. Kenyon captures the essence of life in all its ordinariness and extraordinariness."Let Evening Come," for example, is a nearly perfect gem -- thoughtful, concise, movingly eloquent.Throughout this collection, the poet demonstrates a remarkable clarity of vision; her diction and meter are gorgeous, her wit and insight profound yet never burdensome.Whether recalling a scene from her childhood, an hour in winter, a cancer treatment, a death in the family, or a walk with the dog, Ms. Kenyon inspires, illuminates, and entertains.

Captivating and Honest
I absolutely love this book. Jane Kenyon's poetry describes some of the most simple, daily activities in a way that brings out their hidden beauty and grace. You can sense the careful observation and truthfullness of whatshe describes, yet as you read you can interpret the symbolism behindcertain passages and the realizations there aswell. I feel so deeplyconnected with this book. Her poetry speaks the words we cannot say. Youwon't regret buying this book.

The Struggle and Beauty of Living
Jane Kenyon's poems show a keen observation of everyday detail -- "the luminous particular," as her husband Donald Hall puts it -- with a muted level of emotion.A typical poem in this ample collection meanders through several fine images, then pulls them together at the end with a description of mood or a realization. Kenyon is especially fond of the smell of wet earth, the sound of rain, and images of water.In general, her images are much more successful than her similes.Some of her beautiful phrases are reminiscent of traditional Chinese poetry: "...the water...stares back at the moon from its cool terra-cotta urn"; of Sharon Olds: "Not dark enough, not the utter darkness he desired"; and of Anna Akhmatova, whom she translated from the Russian, cf. Kenyon's poem "The Appointment."In the poem "Trouble with Math..." an incident about undeserved punishment ends with, "She led me, blinking and changed, back to!the class." -- Changed in what way?The author's language is spare and delicate, but sometimes the point gets lost. The overall impression is that the author was straining toward happiness, and she made the most of the occasional window of opportunity allowed her by illness.I found the book pleasant to read, but when it was once closed, very little remained with me.This author does not have the same clarity and robustness as, say, Luise Gluck, another poet who suffered from depression.But I did find Jane Kenyon poignant and alive when she spoke directly about her experience of illness, e.g. when she says, "I'm falling upward, nothing to hold me down." ... Read more

Book Description
A clear and accurate presentation of the simple physical and mathematical concepts needed to understand how music works and its underlying principles of physics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

i love this book

It is a nice introductory book both for music and physics.. physics students who are learning wave theory should consider reading at least some chapters of this book..

Great starting point for studying the intersection of science and sound
This book is an excellent starting place for someone who wants a somewhat quantitative treatment of the science of sound as it relates to music, but does not have the advanced math background necessary to digest something like "The Physics of Musical Instruments". The chapters and sections in this third edition are the same as in the previous edition, however some changes have been made to the content. The book is updated with more current references to the end-of-chapter bibliographies, and there is some new material, especially in areas affected by the personal computer's role in the digital processing of sound.

The author provides an integrated understanding of three major areas: the production of sound by various sources, the propagation of sound from source to listener, and the perception of sound by the human brain.
For easier reading, each chapter starts with an introductory section that sets up the chapter. There are also summaries and lists of symbols, terms, and relations highlighting the most important terms and quantitative expressions in each chapter. There are realistic and interesting exercise sets containing both qualitative and quantitative questions for each chapter, with most chapters containing 20-25 exercises. There are also projects included that provide out-of-class assignments that generally require students to do research. There are approximately three of these in each chapter. Finally, several new photographs have been added to this third edition, particularly of the inner ear structure and of the vocal cords in motion.

Like the previous reviewer, I make a habit of purchasing and reading several textbooks a year, and sometimes I am very disappointed and sometimes I am not. This is one of those purchases that I found most worthwhile. If you are interested in the intersection of math, acoustics, perception, and musical instruments I highly recommend it. A math background up to the level of algebra and geometry should be sufficient to understand the quantitative portions of the book. The table of contents is as follows:

1. THE NATURE OF SOUND.
Acoustics and Music. Organizing Our Study of Sound. The Physical Nature of Sound. The Speed of Sound. Pressure and Sound Amplitude.
2. WAVES AND VIBRATIONS.
The Time Element in Sound. Waveforms. Functional Relations. Simple Harmonic Oscillation. Work, Energy, and Resonance.
3. SOURCES OF SOUND.
Classifying Sound Sources. Percussion Instruments. String Instruments. Wind Instruments. Source Size. Sound from the Natural Environment.
4. SOUND PROPAGATION.
Reflection and Refraction. Diffraction. Outdoor Music. The Doppler Effect. Interference and Beats.
5. SOUND INTENSITY AND ITS MEASUREMENT.
Amplitude, Energy, and Intensity. Sound Level and the Decibel Scale. The Inverse-Square Law. Environmental Noise. Combined Sound Levels and Interference.
6. THE HUMAN EAR AND ITS RESPONSE.
The Mechanism of the Human Ear. Limits of Audibility and Discrimination. Characteristics of Steady Single Tones. Loudness and Intensity. Pitch and Frequency. Pitch and Loudness Together. Timbre and Instrument Recognition.
7. ELEMENTAL INGREDIENTS OF MUSIC.
Organizing Musical Events in Time. Melody and Harmony. Scales and Intervals. The Harmonic Series.
8. SOUND SPECTRA AND ELECTRONIC SYNTHESIS.
Prototype Steady Tones. Periodic Waves and Fourier Spectra. Modulated Tones. Electronic and Computer Music.
9. PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS AND NATURAL MODES.
Searching for Simplicity. Coupled Pendulums. Natural Modes and Their Frequencies. Tuning Forks and Xylophone Bars. Drums, Cymbals, and Bells. Striking Points and Vibration Recipes. Damped Vibrations.
10. PIANO AND GUITAR STRINGS.
Natural Modes of a Thin String. Vibration Recipes for Plucked Strings. Vibration Recipes for the Piano. Piano Scaling and Tuning.
11. THE BOWED STRING.
Violin Construction. Bowing and String Vibrations. Resonance. Sound Radiation from String Instruments.
12. BLOWN PIPES AND FLUTES.
Air Column Vibrations. Fluid Jets and Edgetones. Organ Flue Pipes. Organ Registration and Design. Fingerholes and Recorders. The Transverse Flute.
13. BLOWN REED INSTRUMENTS.
Organ Reed Pipes. The Reed Woodwinds. The Brass Family. Playable Notes and Harmonic Spectra. Radiation.
14. THE HUMAN VOICE.
The Vocal Apparatus. Sound Production. Formants. Special Characteristics of the Singing Voice.
15. ROOM ACOUSTICS.
General Criteria for Room Acoustics. Reverberation Time. Reverberation Calculation. Reverberant Sound Levels. Sound Reinforcement. Spatial Perception.
16. SOUND REPRODUCTION.
Electric and Magnetic Concepts. Transducers. Microphones. Amplifiers. Recording. Loudspeakers. Multiphonic Sound Reproduction.
17. THE EAR REVISITED.
Types of Pitch Judgment. Pitch Perception Mechanisms. Modern Pitch Perception Theory. Critical Bands. Combination Tones. Loudness and Masking. Timbre.
18. HARMONIC INTERVALS AND TUNING.
Interval Perception. Intervals and the Harmonic Series. Musical Scales. The Impossibility of Perfect Tuning. Tuning and Temperament.
19. STRUCTURE IN MUSIC.
Melodies and Modes. Chords and Harmonic Progressions. Consonance and Dissonance. Musical Forms and Styles.
20. EPILOGUE: SCIENCE AND ESTHETICS.
APPENDIX A. WRITTEN MUSIC.
APPENDIX B. THE METRIC SYSTEM.
Units for Physical Measurements. Scientific Notation and Computation.
APPENDIX G. GLOSSARY.
APPENDIX H. HINTS AND ANSWERS TO SELECTED EXERCISES.
Index.
The Chromatic Scale; The Chromatic Series Slider.

Fascinating
This book is a thorough overview of physics behind music.In the first part of the book, Hall lays the foundation with an investigation into waves, sound propagation, sound measurement, and the human ear.The middle third of the book takes up families of instruments, and how they work to create musical sounds.The last part of the book investigates room acoustics, sound reproduction, and the perception of intervals, tunings, and musical structure.Each chapter includes references and suggestions for further reading, numerous mathematical exercises for practicing the concepts covered in the chapter, and a list of potential projects for further investigation.The book includes a glossary and answers to selected problems, as well as an index.

I read quite a few textbooks for work and occasionally just for interest's sake, but this one really stands out.After reading the first few chapters, I found myself wishing I could sit in on Hall's lectures.His style is intensely personal, and his explanations are incredibly clear.I'll admit that sometimes my eyes glossed over while slogging through some of the numbers and charts, but it was mainly my fault for not being a more active reader.In order to get the most from this book, you really need to read it with calculator in hand, or better yet, an Excel spreadsheet open, ready to try out the numbers and scenarios that Hall provides us with.Nevertheless, the math is kept quite simple- -no calculus; if you can do algebra, you should be able to get through the book.

I've found the information in the book to be quite useful.Hall's description of how resonance works in drums has helped me make sense of my tabla teacher's pickiness about where my fingers strike the tabla heads.And at last I understand the physics behind why some rooms in my house are acoustically dead, and others are alive.Hall has opened up a new world of ideas for me, and I will be thinking them through for years to come.I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know how music really works. ... Read more

Book Description
This book introduces the three principal types or genres of literature: fiction, poetry, and drama in a way that helps students read literature with pleasure, intelligence, and discrimination. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Donald Hall's Critical Analysis Masterpeice
Donald Hall takes his College and University Audience through all phasesof the critical analysis process for Fiction, Poetry and Drama. He makes,asdo all geniuses, his subject accessable to all levels and needs.Hisexplication of symbolism and imagry is especially useful.

This is a"must read" for every aspiring student and teacher of literature. ... Read more

Book Description
This original paperback brings together for the first time all of Donald Halls writing on Eagle Pond Farm, his ancestral home in New Hampshire, where he visited his grandparents as a young boy and then lived with his wife Jane Kenyon until her death. It includes the entire, previously published Seasons at Eagle Pond and Here at Eagle Pond; the poem Daylilies on the Hill from The Painted Bed; and several uncollected essays. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

New Hampshire Exposed
When I was growing up in suburban New York, my parents sent me to a summer camp in rural New Hampshire for a number of summers.During these summers, I fell in love with the beauty and ruggedness of New Hampshire.I spent my summers riding horses, hiking mountains and swimming in ice cold lakes.I also spent my summers swatting mosquitoes and battling poison ivy.Donald Hall's anthology, Eagle Pond, brought back memories of these summers long gone, evoking memories both sweet and bitter-sweet.Hall's writing is lyrical and poetic, using words sparingly to evoke sounds, thoughts and memories.His commentary on the shallowness of our lives when they are based purely on the present and lack historical depth is right on target.

I wish that I had read Hall's works separately.Unfortunately, they do not work too well together in anthology form.There is too much repetition, which sometimes gets annoying.This repetition is necessary if each volume stands alone, but it becomes redundant in anthology form.This does not decrease the beauty of the writing, but it does lessen the beauty of the book as a whole.
... Read more

Book Description
Affirmation To grow old is to lose everything.Aging, everybody knows it.Even when we are young, we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads when a grandfather dies.Then we row for years on the midsummer pond, ignorant and content.But a marriage, that began without harm, scatters into debris on the shore, and a friend from school drops cold on a rocky strand.If a new love carries us past middle age, our wife will die at her strongest and most beautiful.New women come and go.All go.The pretty lover who announces that she is temporary is temporary.The bold woman, middle-aged against our old age, sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.Another friend of decades estranges himself in words that pollute thirty years.Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge and affirm that it is fitting and delicious to lose everything. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

gets a bit weighty
Donald Hall's collection The Painted Bed sort of does more of the same, lamenting the loss of his wife. A poem or two is one thing, but whole book? There are some good poems in this book, both of the long poems are pretty good ("Kill the Day" & "Daylillies on the Hill"). Hall's painted bed is just too much, though I also thought "Impossible Lovers" was pretty good.

Magnificent
Heartbreak recollected in sublimity. The long "Daylilies" poem tells of the loss of the poet's family members over two centuries in his New Hampshire farmhouse. Walls, beams, lathe, handmade nails, everything about the house goes into a sense of infinite loss over the centuries and parallels the loss of his wife. We all go into the night, but it's great to go in the hands of a poet like Hall.

On Death and Dying
At 47 Jane Kenyon, much younger than her husband Donald Hall, should have buried him; but that was not meant to be. In this slim volume of poetry, Hall writes eloquently of his wife's death, his love for her, his grief, despair and eventual acceptance of life without his wife. The poems are best if read straight through. They are highly personal, sometimes almost embarrassingly so. We should thank Mr. Hall for sharing his most intimate thoughts on such a private and painful subject.

Mr. Hall's imagery is beautiful. Listen to the opening lines of "Kill The Day."

"When she died it was as if her car accelerated
off the pier's end and zoomed upward over death water
for a year without gaining or losing altitude. . . "

In the poem "Ardor" lust is described as "grief that has turned over in bed to look the other way." Finally in the concluding poem in the book "Affirmation" Hall describes the indifference of the young to growing old with this wonderful image: "we row for years on the midsummer pond, ignorant and content."

These poems bring, if not comfort, at least the knowldge that we are not alone in our own losses. As in all good art, the particular becomes the universal.

Poems that humanize
Hall's verse not only vivifies the one he mourns for, but also awakens and afflicts the reader with a sympathetic alertness; moreover, the stanzas of the poems, both rhymed and un-, represent his best writing in verse since the days of "The One Day."Perhaps such evaluations are an impertinence as we ponder poems born of such grief; nonetheless, Hall deserves praise for his esthetic accomplishment and his intimately human voice.The language does not falter.

If the price of a hardcover book proves prohibitive, one might fly to the nearest bookstore, pluck "The Painted Bed" from the shelves, and sit on a chair or a patch of carpet and receive these words as one might receive the language of a liturgy.The stations of Hall's grief are composed of stately phrases and living words.Few books of poetry can be described with justice as necessary to acquire and to absorb; Hall's collection of elegies is such a book -- vital in the sense of necessary, and in the sense of helping one to live.

Cannot wait to read the entire collection
I heard the author interviewed on Fresh Air today and was enthralled by the reading of his poetry.I lost my mom to cancer three years ago and want to buy this collection not only for myself but also for my dad, who has gone through many of the same stages of grief and mourning as the author.Now that my dad is coming out on the other side -- and learning to live fully again, but always with the memories of my mom not far away -- I think he might appreciate this honest voice that explores emotion, loss, and self.If the poems Hall read on Fresh Air are any indication, the rest of this collection will be quite moving and memorable. ... Read more

Book Description

This clear, succinct primer for literary theory provides students with a useful guide to contemporary theory and methodologies. Theoretical overviews summarize each literary approach for clarification and Application Essays by well-known scholars, on works by authors such as Shakespeare, Austen, Melville, Faulkner, and Angelou, represent the stated principles. The text helps students generate consistent, well-focused analyses based on any of ten critical methodologies, including New Criticism, Psychoanalytic Analysis, Deconstruction, Feminist Analysis, and New Historicism.

Book Description

Book Description

Co-authored by two esteemed writers, Writing Well, is a beautifully-written and thoroughly readable guide to the craft of writing prose.

Customer Reviews (1)

good writing resource
There are a lot of books out there that tell you how to write, some are inspirational, others teach grammar. This book mixes the two to emphasize proper usage of sentence structure and linguistics to write the strongest prose. The book also centers on revision to ensure better, polished writing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Not so much a manual...
This is an excellent and brief investigation of the psychology of the academic self.It is a self-help book designed for those who set the bar very high and try to be all things to all people. Most helpful is the first chapter on "self" wherein the author calls academics to examine their own insecurities.

For a narrower audience than the title suggests
Despite the generality of the title, Hall's book is heavily bent towards an audience of humanities professors and graduate students whose careers are in - or will be in - teaching rather than research institutions.Although there is much that is accessible and relevant to a wider audience of academic professionals, Hall's heavy use of terminology from his own discipline (I still have no idea what a problematization is,) as well as his assumption that the reader is familiar with one particular school of self-help books, makes much of the book useless to someone who hasn't read and studied what he has.

The introduction is the worst part in this respect.If I wasn't given this book by someone who expected me to read it, I would have stopped right there.However, "The Academic Self" does oscillate between addressing Hall's fairly limited core audience and providing useful advice to a broader range of scholars, both at an abstract level and in terms of nuts-and-bolts, plan-out-your-day suggestions. ... Read more

Amazon.com
The One Day is a long poem that weaves the voice of a male and a female together with classic texts in an examination of middle age and its accompanying crisis. The poem, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1988, has three parts--"Shrubs Burnt Away," "Four Classic Texts" and "To Build a House"--and uses a 10-line stanza with variable line length in an experimental form. The words often strike deep into the heart of mid-life anxiety; he calls the bed "a preparation of death." But The One Day isn't all despair, it is also about a life worth living: "Work, love, build a house, and die. But build a house."Book Description
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, this serious, ambitious, and graceful book-length poem is the masterwork of one of America's foremost contemporary poets. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Stunning
Hall takes a single thread, aging, and observes it from all angles, male, female, depression, esctasy, violence, anger and happiness.Man is compared with history, nature and Greek tragedy.But don't get put off bythe grande themes, this is a very readeable and enjoyable book for anyonewho likes to read. ... Read more

Book Description
Word count: 4045. ... Read more

Book Description
HERE AT EAGLE POND is Donald Hall's remarkable collection of essays about the permanent and transparent memory of place and of his coming home to Eagle Pond, New Hampshire, where he grew up and returned to live with his wife Jane Kenyon at the age of 45, where he began writing poems at the age of twelve, and where his ancestors made their livings by free-lancing as farmers.In these tender essays, Hall tells of the joys and quiddities of life in the ancestral New Hampshire place formerly worked as a dairy farm by his grandparents; of the comforts and discomforts of a world in which the year has four seasons -- maple sugar, blackfly, Red Sox, and winter. These essays are also Donald Hall's letters to friends, answers to such life-altering questions as: "What would our lives be like, living here at Eagle Pond, in solitude among relics and memories, in a countryside of birches and GMC pickups?" And they are ghost stories as well: vivid descriptions of Hall's intimate connection with the land and with his family past.Most importantly, HERE AT EAGLE POND is Donald Hall's coming home to language. ... Read more