The Collected Poems of Hazel Hall
 |
Edited by John Witte
2000. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches. 256 pages. Notes. Bibliography. Index.
ISBN 0-87071-478-3. Hardcover, $22.95.
Table of Contents
Introduction
|
After a half-century of neglect, Hazel Hall's poetry has in recent years attracted a new generation of greatful readers. During the short span of her career, Hall became one of the West's outstanding literary figures, a poet whose fierce, crystalline verse was frequently compared with that of Emily Dickinson. Her three books, published to critical acclaim in the 1920's, are collected here for the first time. Together, they reintroduce an immediate and intensely honest voice, one that speaks to us with an edgy modernity.
Confined to wheelchair since childhood, Hall reviewed life from the window of an upper room in her family's house in Portland, Oregon. To better observe passersby on the sidewalk, she positioned a small mirror on her windowsill. Hall was an accomplished seamstress: her fine neddlework helped to support the family and provided a vivid body of imagery for her precisely crafted, often gorgeously embellished poems.
Hall's writings--her mirror trained on the world--convey the dark undertones of the lives of working women in the early twentieth century, while bringing into focus her own private, reclusive life--her limited mobility, her isolation and loneliness, her gifts with needlework and words, and her exquisite grief. In his introduction to this volume, John Witte examines Hall's brief and brilliant career and highlights her remarkably modern sensibilities, showing her to be poet for all time.
"King Lear, that ranter to high heaven, praised his daughter because 'her voice was ever soft,/ Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.' Deeply acquainted with pain, Hazel Hall talked of it softly. She spoke from an absolutely on-public experience. We have very little direct literary access to the kind of life she led, the work she did. Her poetry is a valuable testament, historically and psychologically, of the secret--passionate secret--life of a single working woman in a world that took no notice of her."
--Ursula K. LeGuin
"I don't know of a woman alive who wouldn't wish that she had written that the walker knows 'the truth your feet speak to the ground' or 'So tonight I know of the delicate pleasure/ Of white-handed women/ Who like to touch the smooth linen handkerchiefs... and even something of the secret pride of the girl/ As the folds of her fine lawn nightgown/ Breathe against her body.' Bravo to Oregon State University Press for bringing Hazel Hall back to life after seventy years!"
--Carolyn Kizer
About the Editor
John Witte is a widely published poet, a teacher, and the editor of
Northwest Review. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.
Back to top of page
Secure online ordering form (Orders go to our distributor - The University of Arizona Press). For a complete listing of available books, check out our catalog of books in print.
