Donald Hall and Andrew Motion Write Poetic Memoirs

I’m sure why I first started reading memoirs by major poetic figures, but I recently read two that struck me as particularly significant in the development and history of what we consider contemporary poetry. One was American; the other is a Brit who eventually landed in America. Both knew major figures in poetry in their respective countries and beyond. And both served as poet laureates of their respective countries. 

American Donald Hall (1928-2018) first published a memoir entitled Their Ancient Glittering Eyes in 1992. In 2022, four years after his death, a new updated version entitled Old Poets: Reminiscences & Opinions was produced. It’s not so much a chronological memoir as it is an account of his personal experiences with some of the major figures of 20^thcentury poetry. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“February,” poem by Helen Hunt Jackson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Masters of Pulp Fiction: The Lee Child Edition – Frank Theodat at Pulp, Pipe, & Poetry.

 

A Diner for David Lynch: Poems in Remembrance of a Master – Ethan McGuire at New Verse Review.

 

Poet Laura: A Concert in the General Store – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Andrew Motion’s “The Customs House”

Next year will mark the 100^th anniversary of World War I, the “war to end all wars,” except it didn’t. The “Great War” has held a great fascination for writers and poets, not to mention historians, not the least for which is because it so neatly, and jaggedly, divided the old word order from the new. The war also produced several poets who became famous in death, such as Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen, and several who survived the war but became part of the Lost Generation, such as Seigfried Sassoon and Robert Graves.

Their poetic styles varied widely, but they shared a view of war that was both realistic and resistant. Poetry served as the means to illustrate both.

The first half of Andrew Motion’s The Customs House: Poems shares that same realistic and resistant view of war. A series of poems about war stretches from World War I through the wars of today, including Iraq and Afghanistan. But the poems not include the battlefield and theaters of war, but also the home front, and the aftermath of war. These poems often tell stories, but they all examine war with a cold penetrating eye.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph by Tim Emerich via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.