Hermit with Landscape

Yale Series of Younger Poets

by Daniel Hall

The winning volume in the 1989 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Hermit with Landscape by Daniel Hall. As James Merrill, distinguished poet and judge of the competition, has said: "Daniel Hall is a patient craftsman, a weigher of each word. Smaller and more lucid than their model, his imitations of life place no burden upon us; rather, their deftness lightens our step. Here mind once again outdances the monumental."
 
Tidal
 
A moth hove out of fog. All I heard
was the incessant dissolving
of the surf, attenuated, drawn
through eggshell, bone and ash
as through the walls of another room.
 
After dark, before a glass,
in a hall reeling with shadows,
a pair of eyes resolved. At last
they shone: they shone
like phosphorescent moons.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

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.