The Small Nouns Crying Faith

The first word in this new collection by Phil Hall is “raw” and the last word is “blurtip.”
Between these, many nouns cry faith within a hook-less 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, local noises, partial
words, remnants, dirt roads, deep breath & hope:

my laboratory the moment
is accordion-shaped – cluttered – sopping

& not eternal

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Praise for Phil Hall:

“[Hall has created] a meditation on the poetic process that stimulates both the intellect and the imagination.” — Barbara Carey, The Toronto Star

“Hall manages to rescue the lyrical essay from its recondite excesses and turn it into something that’s as adventurous as it is readable. Hall has called himself a ‘surruralist,’ and this book charts his development as a writer, but it also demonstrates and furthers that development.” — Paul Vermeersh, The Globe and Mail

“Hall is aware that he’s aligned with an aesthetic of past decades that may not be fashionable, but he seems determined to keep its spirit alive by understanding what it tells us about our aesthetic today. To him I would give an award for unabashedly keeping an authentic Canadian poetic voice alive.” — The Montreal Gazette

“Killdeer is a testament to the creative life as an act of faith and transformation.” — The Griffin Prize Judges

Reviews:

“Somehow, his lines manage to self-contain in such a way that even a shift in the order might still make the entire collection no less capable, breathtaking and wise.” — rob mclennan

“it is exactly this insecurity, closeness, and hunger that make the collection exceptional.” — Quill and Quire

“Hall is after the sublime as a byproduct of play.” — The Globe and Mail

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Hall was the 2011 winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry in English for his book of essay-poems, Killdeer. In 2012, Killdeer also won Ontario’s Trillium Book Award, an Alcuin Design Award, and was nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize. Previously, Trouble Sleeping (2001) was nominated for the Governor General’s Award, and An Oak Hunch (2005) was nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize. He has taught writing and literature at York University, Ryerson University, Seneca College, George Brown College and elsewhere. Currently, he offers a manuscript mentoring service for the Toronto New School of Writing. Hall has recently been writer-in-residence at Queens University & the University of Windsor. In fall 2013 he will be an instructor at the Banff Cenre for the Arts, in the Wired Writing Program. He lives near Perth, Ontario.