Phil Hall has published 12 books of poems, 9 chapbooks, & 1 cassette. His first book, Eighteen Poems, was published in 1973. Among his other titles are A Minor Operation (1984), Old Enemy Juice (1988), The Unsaid (1992), and Hearthedral—A Folk-Hermetic (1996). His Trouble Sleeping was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for poetry in 2001.
In 2005, Brick Books (celebrating 20 years as Hall’s publisher) published An Oak Hunch, which was nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2006.
He has taught writing and literature at the Kootenay School of Writing, York University, Ryerson Polytechnical University, and many colleges. He has been poet-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario, Sage Jill Writing Experience in Saskatchewan, The Berton House in Dawson City and elsewhere. In fall, 2007, BookThug published Hall’s long poem, White Porcupine, and also a revised second edition of his essay/poem, The Bad Sequence. In fall 2009, from Beautiful Outlaw Press, Ghost Gum, a hand-sewn chapbook, part of a deluxe set of 6 in a slipcover was released. Other chapbooks in the set are by Erín Moure, Angela Carr, Oana Avasilichioaei, Jay MillAr, & Mark Goldstein. This spring, 2010, Pedlar Press will publish The Little Seamstress, edited by Erín Moure. Phil lives near Perth, Ontario.
Sent For Mint
To pace a pleasing moiety-line
in my brown fedora at dusk in the rain
as I search by our dock for a red stem
the raccoons have dug up the turtle eggs
but not tipped over Manny's empty ashes-urn
many before us here wrote as wide & wild
Jean Joan Matt McKay Sliter Al Robb
ornate or silly up these draw-road watersheds
they were the daughters of hockey players
(stupid chickens / fried egg sandwiches)
Amy Michael Cohen Finnegan Don Kim
of course that rubber stamp of Dürer's rhino
came down on volumes of exiled theory-song
& even the Dalmatian wore a wife-beater t-shirt
Murray Dorothy Wallace Stan Havelock
sunken log barns incubated early styles
lots severed / dams imploded / sap rang
originals & imitations played euchre
despite these gnat-swarms this poison ivy
algae bloom zebra mussels
mosquitoes deer-flies the OPP firing range
increased traffic on Murphy's Pt Rd
we flaunt a small town bulk foods happiness
after those difficult city years / ripping money
& kicking the cobbler's bench over
smell this wild quick tang on my fingers
an invitation like this has ended a poem before
some comfort in knowing that grows
*
It can't be October
in the stove I burn old New Yorkers
(but always save the William Steig covers)
lake light quavers
cleaning as it again mulls over
the smoke-darkened Rene de Braux painting
Chris benisoned walls with / now I get to
A man with a cattle-gad on each shoulder
half-way / no hurry / a Roman bridge
(double arches / quick weed-hints)
a stuccoed villa set in along a hillside
Ann has taken the Wolf River apples down to Margaret 92
mornings I try to read page-shaped ash
a quote my fire preserves all night
from columns it has only one use for now
riven by passion, not profit. We continue.
Ottawa International Poets and Writers for human Rights (OIPWHR)
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