Phil Hall

Phil Hall is well known as a writer and supporter of "work poetry." He stands in solidarity with workers, with the little guy, the often faceless many. His poetry can be fierce in their service, but it is sponsored by humane inquiry, not dogma. Amanuensis takes its title from a poem about ghostwriting, and the image plays teasingly over the whole v …

"whatever words meant/has filligreed & transmutated" writes Phil Hall; his new Brick book marks an important shift in his writing. The fascinating leaps of Hall's language in Hearthedral may be a surprise to readers familiar with his other work, but his uncompromising honesty, his willingness to face sorrow and self remain constant. What emerges is …

These are poems of critical thought that have been influenced by old fiddle tunes. These are essays that are not out to persuade so much as ruminate, invite, accrue.

Hall is a surruralist (rural & surreal), and a terroir-ist (township-specific regionalist). He offers memories of, and homages to -- Margaret Laurence, Bronwen Wallace, Libby Scheier, a …

A book of poems like an Alexander Calder mobile, or a Jean Tingley sculpture. The critical mind has been replaced by an open invitation. The Little Seamstress is breath. Sad breath growing down. May guck turn regal!

The title of An Oak Hunch

comes from one of the sequences in this five-sequence book of poems: Phil Hall's homage to a poetic mentor, Al Purdy. Its subtitle is "Essay on Purdy," and these highly original, highly personal takes on the poetry and the life of Al Purdy "essay" in the root sense of the word: attempt or probe. The other four sequences, " …

The first word in this new collection by Phil Hall is "verb" and the last word is "blurtip." Between these, many nouns cry out their faith within a hookless framework that sings in chorus while undermining such standard forms & tropes as "the memoir," "genealogy" and "the shepherd's calendar." With a rural pen, these poems talk frogs, carrots, loca …

"If only my cousin had kept off me, kept out of me his brown fly-strop glue, his shot dog-eye cream. Afterwards, he would comb my hair to a wet Elvis point between my eyes and warn me what his wolves would do to me, and where I'd be sent, if I ever told."

This experience is at the core of Phil Hall's Trouble Sleeping. It is the source of bad dreams …

A sequence of poems probing an inner return to a tenuous home; another gathered around an armature of poetics; a third insinuating poetry into political oppression: The Unsaid shares the fierce honest precision that Phil Hall's poetry is well known for. All of his poems open their palms to the reader, no matter how personal and painful the haunts t …

Two porcupines walk into a bar. No, wait. One porcupine walks into a bar. Well, actually, it’s a poet. And he walks into a library. He opens books and shakes them until they look like porcupines dancing. He is looking for old photos to eat. He likes the salt taste of the chemicals. Chewing, he crawls oot. Toying with the confessional, Phil Hall’ …

Why I Haven't Written takes Phil Hall back to Ontario roots in family immediate and extended, and on again into the larger world. In his beautifully-controlled poems, he catches much of a life in nodes of consequence-often painful for the poet, but not for the reader. The life may have seemed ill-fitting to the one who blundered or was buffeted thr …