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Seasons at Eagle Pond
A heartfelt celebration of the New England seasons in a charmingly illustrated, slipcased gift edition by New England's pre-eminent poet. Lyrical, comic and elegiac, it sings of a land and culture that is disappearing under the assault of change.
86 pages, Paperback
First published November 3, 1987
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About the author
Donald Hall
180 books201 followersDonald Hall was considered one of the major American poets of his generation.
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 17, 2014
Not only the whippoorwill wakes us on this long day and its briefer cousins of high summer. Every bough bends with feathered guests singing of summer in full-throated ease. Now the blue jay squawks and the fat crows caw - big as hens and black as evil where they gather on roadkills or on seeded fields - and the small birds trill, chirp and exult... I walk outside blinking and stretching with the dog that blinks and stretches, performing The Dog from his yoga class, sniffing with total concentration. For him the nose and its pleasures and codes of knowledge are ten times more intense than my delighted vision. In dog language there are two hundred words for squirrel piss.
I don't know that I've ever read a lovelier description of summer. Leave it to former Poet Laureate Donald Hall to make roadkill and squirrel piss sound somewhat romantic. Hall takes you through the seasons with his wonderful essays about life on a New Hampshire farm.
He tells of winter days as a youngster helping his grandfather fill the icehouse with huge chunks cut from the pond. Later, it was time to trudge from tree to tree collecting sap to be boiled into syrup.
Soon, spring arrives with a plague of mud and blackflies. Days are filled with garden planning and planting...and the swatting of blackflies.
Hummingbirds announce that summer, with all its wonders, is finally here:
...hummingbirds hover and flash. These overgrown bumblebees, biodegradable helicopters, athletes of stasis, fly or stand vibrating on air inches away from us all summer long.
And once again, it is fall - a crazy anthology of universal color, shade and texture. We inhabit the landscapes brightest and briefest flesh.
All too quickly comes Thanksgiving:
Thanksgiving's turkey is fall's last fall: "Over the river and through the wood/ To grandfather's house we go..." The horse knows the way, and so does the Nissan pickup. Though the turkey be frozen and the stuffing be Pepperidge Farm, the Pilgrims' late celebration of corn and apple and cranberry, or mince and turnip and cider, turns the last key in the door of autumn. At noon, the potato mashes and the gravy thickens. In early dark, we lie about, with football breaking its bones all over the living room, and we make Thanksgiving for one more cycle of the year gone through, ended with the great ghostdance of autumn, bright and pale wedded from September's leaf to November's early dark.
Perhaps it takes a poet to so perfectly capture the magic that thrives in each particular season, but we can all take the time to smell the air, look around us, and marvel at the wonders to behold.
Ain't it great to be alive?
I don't know that I've ever read a lovelier description of summer. Leave it to former Poet Laureate Donald Hall to make roadkill and squirrel piss sound somewhat romantic. Hall takes you through the seasons with his wonderful essays about life on a New Hampshire farm.
He tells of winter days as a youngster helping his grandfather fill the icehouse with huge chunks cut from the pond. Later, it was time to trudge from tree to tree collecting sap to be boiled into syrup.
Soon, spring arrives with a plague of mud and blackflies. Days are filled with garden planning and planting...and the swatting of blackflies.
Hummingbirds announce that summer, with all its wonders, is finally here:
...hummingbirds hover and flash. These overgrown bumblebees, biodegradable helicopters, athletes of stasis, fly or stand vibrating on air inches away from us all summer long.
And once again, it is fall - a crazy anthology of universal color, shade and texture. We inhabit the landscapes brightest and briefest flesh.
All too quickly comes Thanksgiving:
Thanksgiving's turkey is fall's last fall: "Over the river and through the wood/ To grandfather's house we go..." The horse knows the way, and so does the Nissan pickup. Though the turkey be frozen and the stuffing be Pepperidge Farm, the Pilgrims' late celebration of corn and apple and cranberry, or mince and turnip and cider, turns the last key in the door of autumn. At noon, the potato mashes and the gravy thickens. In early dark, we lie about, with football breaking its bones all over the living room, and we make Thanksgiving for one more cycle of the year gone through, ended with the great ghostdance of autumn, bright and pale wedded from September's leaf to November's early dark.
Perhaps it takes a poet to so perfectly capture the magic that thrives in each particular season, but we can all take the time to smell the air, look around us, and marvel at the wonders to behold.
Ain't it great to be alive?
December 30, 2024
this did not help my yearning for a big drafty farmhouse on the east coast
March 2, 2022
While some spots can be a bit wordy, there is no doubt you are transported back to another era. It is neither a better or worse one, just a place in time that he has captured beautifully. The fact that the property has been saved for future generations adds a nice touch to this tale which can now continue in a new way.
October 15, 2018
Donald Hall's writings are like the feelings you get when you're in your most comfortable old sweats under a blanket in front of the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate... and you just want to stay there forever. This book does not disappoint. The gentle prose and succinct images transport you to a world you want to enter and never leave, a world of falling leaves, water lapping in a pond, and a lone duck disappearing into a darkening evening. Get this book and snuggle in for a good read.
December 4, 2016
I will read anything Hall has to write about Eagle Pond. His figurative language is so bountiful. I won't dare try to describe it in lesser figurative language.
January 5, 2025
This collection of four essays based on the author's home in rural New England is a delight to read. The edition I have also feels beautiful to hold, and the woodcut illustrations by Thomas W Nason are stunning and really add to the enjoyment of the book.
Hall sums up the seasons and conveys their gradual shifts from one to another very well. I also thoroughly enjoyed his anecdotes from past generations. And while he expresses regret at the changes that have come to Eagle Pond, especially with increased traffic and decreased wildlife, he doesn't go on about it to the point where it spoils the rest of the book.
It loses one star for me because he is just too consciously 'poetic' in many of his descriptions, especially of 'winter' and 'fall' (autumn to us Brits). Several times, I was left with a slightly bloated feeling, as one might feel after eating a few too many chocolates! And he needed to ration his use of the adjective 'fauve', which appears far too often. The OED states that the word occurs approximately 0.05 times per million words in modern English. I suspect that without Hall's work, that number would fall to 0.01!
Still a good start to my 2025 reading, though I don't think I will keep this one. Recommended for those who enjoy slow-paced descriptive writing about seasonal changes in the natural world.
Hall sums up the seasons and conveys their gradual shifts from one to another very well. I also thoroughly enjoyed his anecdotes from past generations. And while he expresses regret at the changes that have come to Eagle Pond, especially with increased traffic and decreased wildlife, he doesn't go on about it to the point where it spoils the rest of the book.
It loses one star for me because he is just too consciously 'poetic' in many of his descriptions, especially of 'winter' and 'fall' (autumn to us Brits). Several times, I was left with a slightly bloated feeling, as one might feel after eating a few too many chocolates! And he needed to ration his use of the adjective 'fauve', which appears far too often. The OED states that the word occurs approximately 0.05 times per million words in modern English. I suspect that without Hall's work, that number would fall to 0.01!
Still a good start to my 2025 reading, though I don't think I will keep this one. Recommended for those who enjoy slow-paced descriptive writing about seasonal changes in the natural world.
December 16, 2022
This book is poetry. Full disclosure is that I live only a few miles from Eagle Pond. What Donald Hall writes captures the seasons here in New Hampshire. Winter through Fall, Hall is present in the land. Hall as been gone a few years now, but the words still ring true and capture this unusual place, filled with love and the people who love it. This is not a long piece, but a piece to be savored. Read it slowly and love every minute!
December 22, 2012
I could almost give this dear, delightful little book five stars save for the author's over-indulgence in the last section for Autumn. Not that parts of his description of Autumn weren't perfectly wonderful, as were all the other seasonal descriptions of the New Hampshire Eagle Pond Farm life; but it did seem that he went a little wild with the cacophony of color of the New England Fall. It was the only part of the book I had some difficulty getting through: enough is enough! It is a little humorous after all that Donald Hall, poet extraordinaire, would compare the riotous turning of the New Hampshire countryside metaphorically to paintings/ palettes of the Fauve artists, to exuberant operatic musical arias, to the rich culinary abundance of several different European countries plus Japan ! ... and possibly other "colorful" happenings I'm not remembering. Clever at first but finally over-the-top. I finally found myself "rioted out" and needing to take breathers, only to return to find more and more. Okay, I think we can safely say Autumn is Mr. Hall's favorite season!
The book is a delight, however, in every other sense and season: beautiful descriptions and use of language, pastoral scenery painted bright and clear in the mind's eye, stories harkening back to the ancestral beginnings of place and culture, just enough historical reference to fix it nostalgically for us admirers of things past.
I do recommend the book to anyone who enjoys good writing about the natural world as well as glimpses into the simpler times of our forebears... and perhaps especially to those who love New England. I'm a born and bred Tennessean, but with northern forebears one generation away; a few generation further would find my ancestry being early settlers of this very area.
The book is a delight, however, in every other sense and season: beautiful descriptions and use of language, pastoral scenery painted bright and clear in the mind's eye, stories harkening back to the ancestral beginnings of place and culture, just enough historical reference to fix it nostalgically for us admirers of things past.
I do recommend the book to anyone who enjoys good writing about the natural world as well as glimpses into the simpler times of our forebears... and perhaps especially to those who love New England. I'm a born and bred Tennessean, but with northern forebears one generation away; a few generation further would find my ancestry being early settlers of this very area.
October 20, 2015
Clearly it would seem that I am more a fan of Hall's prose than his poetry. These short essays, each focusing on a season, at the author's beloved Eagle Pond, are all worthwhile. I must just be a bit short in the poetic department. These are not poetry but it is clear in the way of Hall's writing that all that he writes has the life of the sweet word in it. For me, whose first visit with the work of the author was his " Essays at Eighty, " I must acknowledge that his,octogenarian writing, when he claims to have no poetry left in him, is more my style.
Still this does not diminish the obvious worth and beauty of his writing, even if I do struggle to appreciate it as I should.
Still this does not diminish the obvious worth and beauty of his writing, even if I do struggle to appreciate it as I should.
March 15, 2016
Lovely, lyrical little book of ruminations on the passage of time in New Hampshire,
seasonally arranged. The author-narrator's base of observations is the ancestral
farm, and much of the book's charm comes from his humbling self-evaluation as
softer than those who came before. Aren't we all. Accompanying illustrations are
precious and few.
seasonally arranged. The author-narrator's base of observations is the ancestral
farm, and much of the book's charm comes from his humbling self-evaluation as
softer than those who came before. Aren't we all. Accompanying illustrations are
precious and few.
October 15, 2011
Wonderful little book.
January 28, 2020
A beautiful book about the joys of place. Everyone should read it and reread it.
November 24, 2007
A bit crusty, but brings me back home :) Perhaps only those from NH can understand this one...
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews