"I see no reason to spend your life writing poems unless your goal is to write great poems," writes Donald Hall in his essay "Poetry and Ambition." "An ambitious project--but sensible, I think.... We have a culture crowded with people who are famous for being famous. True ambition in a poet seeks fame in the old sense, to make words that live forever."

On June 14, the Library of Congress announced that the Hall--author of fifteen books of poetry and numerous volumes in other genres, and writer-in-residence at the Bennington Writing Seminars since 1994--will be the next poet laureate of the United States.

Over the course of his work in American letters, which has spanned more than half a century, Hall's work has garnered remarkable praise from many sources: among many other awards, he has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Caldecott Medal (for his children's book Ox-Cart Man, which first appeared as a poem in the New Yorker). Even so, his motivation is clearly love rather than prizes or plaudits. Hall once said that "contentment is work so engrossing that you do not know that you are working."

Those who know him well speak admiringly of his devotion to literature in all its forms. Sven Birkerts, a nonfiction faculty member in the Bennington Writing Seminars, described Hall in the Washington Post as "one of the last people around living the full life of the man of letters."

Liam Rector, director of the Writing Seminars, agrees: "Don himself embodies a creature, a character, a tradition we've done everything we can to revive and propel at the Writing Seminars: the man and woman of letters. Don writes in many genres, including essays, reviews, plays, and short stories; he has also been an anthologist, editor, and general provocative presence on behalf of literature."

Former poet laureates--including Robert Pinsky, Ted Kooser, and Billy Collins, who reviewed Hall's most recent book, White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006--have praised Hall's poetry. In his review, Collins celebrates the collection as demonstrating "Hall's versatility in form and subject and his ability to advance happily in a number of poetic and tonal gears."

White Apples and the Taste of Stone follows last year's memoir The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon, about his marriage to the poet Jane Kenyon, who died of leukemia in 1995. Both Kenyon and Hall were at the first Writing Seminars residency in January 1994. Most of their 22-year marriage was lived at Eagle Pond Farm--Hall's grandparents' farm in Wilmot, NH--where they both spent their days writing, and where Hall still resides.

The Library of Congress "keeps to a minimum the specific duties required of the Poet Laureate in order to permit incumbents to work on their own projects while at the Library," and Hall has already begun to toss around project ideas. Previous poet laureates have initiated reading series, newspaper columns, seminars for high school students, and other programs to promote poetry. Hall muses about the possibility of a poetry channel on satellite radio or poetry programs on cable TV.

Whatever he chooses to do with the position, Hall will no doubt continue doing what he has been doing for most of his 77-year life: writing what Librarian of Congress James Billington calls "beautiful poetry on a wide variety of subjects that are often distinctly American, and conveyed with passion."

Donald Hall gave a reading at the College on Sunday, June 18 with fiction writer Betsy Cox as part of the Bennington Writing Seminars reading series, which is still going on all this week. Check the College calendar for tonight's events.

Read More:

• Donald Hall biography at poets.org
• Library of Congress
• The Bennington Writing Seminars (Low Residency MFA Program in Writing and Literature)

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