The Small Nouns Crying Faith

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 frameworkï¿½that 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
isï¿½accordion-shaped — cluttered — sopping

& not eternal

AUTHOR

Phil Hall

Phil Hall is a writer, editor, and teacher. His first book, Eighteen Poems, was published in 1973. Among his many published titles are: Old Enemy Juice (1988); The Unsaid (1992); Hearthedral–A Folk-Hermetic (1996); An Oak Hunch (2005); White Porcupine (Book*hug, 2007); Killdeer (Book*hug, 2011; winner of the 75th Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry and the Trillium Book Prize, and shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize); Small Nouns Crying Faith (Book*hug, 2013); Guthrie Clothing: The Poetry of Phil Hall, a Selected Collage (2015); and My Banjo and Tiny Drawings (2015). Hall has taught writing at York University, Ryerson University, Seneca College, George Brown College, and elsewhere. Phil lives with his wife near Perth, Ontario.