Strange Relation

by Daniel Hall, Mark Doty (Editor)

Genres: Poetry

68 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Daniel J. Hall (born 1952) is an award-winning American poet.

Hall's first book, Hermit with Landscape, was selected by James Merrill as winner of the 1989 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition.

Hall's second book, Strange Relation, was selected by Mark Doty as winner of the 1995 National Poetry Series. His latest book is Under Sleep.

He was a judge for the James Laughlin awards.

He currently lives in Amherst, Massachusetts and is Writer-in-Residence at Amherst College.

Reviews

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

These poems read like eavesdropping on the voice in the poet’s head in which he is carrying on an internal monologue in an imaginary, private region within, perhaps as a buffer against potential emotional or physical threats—a prodigal son, for instance—or as a barrier that determines the distance to be maintained in communicating with his academic audience from halfway across the world: the rhythms measured, lines cut to fit the great blank concavity of thought clouds.

Favorite Poem:
“Mangosteens”

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hall has some wonderful rhythms but I continually felt he was holding too much back, making the reader guess too much of what was going on in his poems. Second readings definitely rewarded the effort, but in the end I didn't feel the poems or even the sections added up to anything much--not even a sense of the poet.