We were honored to mark our launch last month by featuring a contribution from Poet Laureate Donald Hall. Mr. Hall’s artistry has inspired generations, including reader Susanna Hargreaves who submits her own poetry to us this month (“Your Troubadour”, pg. 13). Unfortunately, the structure of Mr. Hall’s original submission, “Cowgirls”, did not make into the final translation of our September print edition.
Art is, indeed, a medium of form and meaning. For writers, so much of the flow and intent of the work being created comes through its arrangement on the page. As Mr. Hall says, “Poetry is its sounds.”
Below, the “sounds” for you, as intended by Donald Hall:
I watched the calves suckle their mothers. After a summer
loose in the heifers’ pasture, they fattened all winter
in the barn and were bred. My grandfather Wesley teased me
for the names of the girls I was sweet on at school: He named
a Holstein for Marsha, who did somersaults in kindergarten.
“I see London, I see France, I see Marsha’s underpants.”
Annually the tie-up extended to Mary Beth, Dottie Page,
–black and white spotted monsters of milk and manure–
Nancy, Elizabeth, and Phyllis Rebecca Gordon, so
beautiful in the sixth grade I could barely look her way.
We cannot thank Donald Hall and each and every contributor enough for their generosity in helping to make the return of The NH Troubadour a success. We promise to always try to live up to the standards we have set for ourselves and you have come to expect.
