Donald Hall

"The dying of a beloved wife and fellow poet makes for a bleak and lonely tale. But Donald Hall's poignant and courageous poetry, facing that dread fact, involves us all: the magnificent, humorous, and gifted woman, Jane Kenyon, who suffered and died; the doctors and nurses who tried but failed to save her; the neighbors, friends, and relatives who grieved for her; the husband who sat by her while she lived and afterward sat in their house alone with...

For Lucy Wells, who lives on a farm in New Hampshire, the summer of 1910 is filled with helping her mother can fruits and vegetables, enjoying the Fourth of July celebration, and other activities.

"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...

Describes the day-to-day life throughout the changing seasons of an early 19th-century New England family.

In the fall of 1909, Lucy gets an early start on making Christmas presents for her family and friends, which they will open at the church's Christmas program.