Digging
by Donald Hall
‘Digging’ by Donald Hall is a thoughtful poem about transformation and nature. The poet leans on images from nature, like a seed growing into a flower, to describe one person’s transformation.
Donald Hall was an American poet who passed away in 2018. He is considered to be one of the most important American poets of his generation. Throughout his several collections, he explores themes like longing for the past and relationships. His work is noted for its surrealistic bent and direct language.
‘Digging’ by Donald Hall is a thoughtful poem about transformation and nature. The poet leans on images from nature, like a seed growing into a flower, to describe one person’s transformation.
A golden poem out of Hall’s heart, ‘Gold’ is about the precious past and conjugal memories of a speaker. It appears in the collection Old and New Poems published in 1990.
Pale gold of the walls, gold
of the centers of daisies, yellow roses
pressing from a clear bowl. All day
we lay on the bed, my hand
Donald Hall’s poem ‘My Son, My Executioner’ centers on how a speaker looks at his child’s innocent face and wishes to die in order to get immortality. It taps on the spiritual bliss of parenting.
The poet of ‘White Apples’ Donald Hall uses plain language and a simple style to describe the effect of a loved one’s death in a speaker’s mind. The way he misses his father is described in this poem.