Donald Hall, "Names of Horses"

Name of Horses - A poem by Donald Hall - American Poems

There's one more installment to go, probably tomorrow, on poetry conferences and M.F.A. programs. But in the visitor comments last time, K gave us a fine poem by the late Jane Kenyon. In response, I offer this one, by her surviving husband, Donald Hall. For me, it has something important in common with Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays."

It's possible that Hall doesn't need every detail prior to the final line; but rhythm, music, along with timing and preparation are subtle matters. If you listen for places where his vowel sounds and meter really enhance the showing and the telling, I think you'll find some. I'm willing to pay tribute to these horses for the fairly short time Donald Hall asks of me. In the poem as a whole, I find an unusual dignity, decorum, elegance, and much of that has to do with the solemn pacing of Hall's tribute.

Besides, the last line has always given me shivers. The list of names strikes me as a daring move by Hall, but I still think it works perfectly as an elegiac conclusion. In the end, how much more praise can we offer than naming the departed? At some point, reciting a list of honors becomes a tedious show. Whatever else the guy was, he was James. Pointing out that he was summa cum laude might almost be an insult. He was not some Latin phrase; he was not Vice Present of Trinket Manipulation; he was James.

Name of Horses - A poem by Donald Hall - American Poems

I came across "Names of Horses" around 1980, which, I think, predates Donald Hall's meeting and courting of Jane Kenyon, never mind her illness and death; so those with a penchant for the biographical should not try to read the poem as a tribute to her. (For that, by the way, Hall has an entire book: The Best Day The Worst Day.)



I cannot explain away the misuse of "lay" just before the final line. It should be "laid"; there is a direct object. I cannot attribute the mistake to poetic license. License to do what? In three decades, shouldn't someone have caught it and changed it?

Tidbit: Bob Dylan's "Lay, lady, lay" is equally at fault grammatically. For reasons I'm unable to articulate, I can give Dylan the benefit of the doubt, but if we had never heard the line as we now know it, how un-musical or un-horny would it have sounded had Dylan given us "Lie, lady, lie/Lie across my big brass bed"?

Oh, I get it! Bad grammar is sexy. Without "lay" as a copulatory connotation and a demonstration that this guy is a man's man right out of the hills near Elkhorn City, Kentucky . . . without the cue of "lay," the girl might have thought he wanted her to take a nap. She might have wondered where the milk and cookies were. But no. This guy is no dreary philologist or that there girl would not be a layin' 'cross no brass bed, big, little or medium.

Gracious, one can miss so much in the pursuit of appropriate language.

Tidbit: in case someone is interested, we looked at another, very different Donald Hall poem here on November 10, 2010.

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Football Outside the Box, Donald Hall's "Olives"

Speaking of military strategy (sort of, on Nov. 8) and flanks and such, in case you haven’t seen this clip of a middle school football trick play, give yourself 30 seconds of pleasure to witness something outside the box:

YouTube - Driscoll Middle School Trick Play

"Back in the day," as the young like to say . . . . My daughter once asked, seriously, “Daddy, were there cars when you were little?” Back in the day, we had a tricky football play called The Swinging Gate.

Our center, Hoss, approaches the ball and, all alone, faces the other team’s defense, while the rest of our team pretends to be confused and lines up, raggedy, but in formation, maybe 15 yards east of Hoss and the ball. The line we make is something like a gate.

Our guys look around and holler inventive stuff like,"Hey, where's Hoss? Yo, who killed, Hoss?" or "Dude, where's the ball?"

At the same time, Hoss bellows at us, "Over here, you morons!" (He’s required to insult us in the name of plot, plausibility, and creativity).

Suddenly Hoss picks up the ball and tosses it over to our speed back, Spunky Runnymede, who, theoretically, has the whole team blocking for him. We've melded into one line that swings like a gate toward the center of the field, shielding ol’ Spunk all the way to glory, against little or no defense from the stupefied bad guys, who are already screaming at the refs, demanding a penalty. Surely something here is illegal. Or immoral. What a bunch of candies.

It worked one time for maybe 30 yards. Apparently the bad guys on defense were faster than our halfback. Story of our lives.

Of course, we could never run it a second time because it had been scouted. Word got out that what we lacked in size and speed, we made up for with Sneaky Spunky. But we lost that game; we were 5 – 5 that year, and we’ve been about 5 – 5 at life.

Somewhere in there is a profound moral, but I’m damned if I can find it.

Donald Hall might have a moral about football, or at least a poem in a tone that's vaguely like mine. Sounds as if Mr. Hall knew Spunky and did not, perhaps, admire him.

Olives by Donald Hall : Poetry Magazine [poem/magazine] : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry.

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