Authors

Hazel Hall

Introduction By

Beth Bentley

Document Type

Book

Publication Date

1980

Abstract

Published by Ahsahta in 1980, The Selected Poems of Hazel Hall originally appeared in three published volumes: Curtains (1921), Walkers (1923), and City of Time (1928). Hall had an exceptionally short period of productivity. Born in 1886, she published her first poem at the age of thirty. Her poetry appeared in Poetry, Dial, Harper’s, Yale Review, The Nation, Literary Review, Lyric, Contemporary Verse, and Bookman before her work slipped into obscurity. Harriet Monroe, editor of Poetry, awarded Hall the Young Poet’s Prize in 1921. Hall was confined to a wheelchair from the age of twelve after a bout of scarlet fever. Although her days were spent in an upstairs room of a large house in Portland, Oregon, her poetry has a vivid richness that extends outside her room and even her own time. Her sonnets are reminiscent of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s, although more gentle in their mental and emotional lacerations. Her world is absolutely feminine—achingly interior, forgotten, small and delicate—and absolutely razor sharp, clearly making her a modern poet.

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