The Museum of Clear Ideas

"With The One Day, this is his best work, a modest, skeptical, and brave poetry that embodies something essential about this late American century." Harvard ReviewThis is Donald Hall's most advanced work, extending his poetic reach even beyond his recent volumes. Conflict dominates this book, and conflict unites it. Hall takes poetry as an instrument for revelation, whether in an elegy for a (fictional) contemporary poet, or in the title series of poems, whose form imitates the first book of the Odes of Horace. The book's final section, "Extra Innings," moves with poignancy to questions about the end of the game."A stunning volume of testamentary verse . . . an often perfect American blend of rue and buoyancy, narrative verve and grace." The New Yorker"Donald Hall is our finest elegist. The Museum of Clear Ideas is as original, idiosyncratic, and un-museumlike a poetic work as we are likely to see for a long...