Greg Hall (1946 – June 23, 2009) was an American poet.

Background

After some success in the Santa Cruz poetry scenes in the 1970s, Hall mostly ceased publishing his poetry, but he continued to write. In the 1970s, Hall and his family moved to San Jose. For many years Hall then lived alone in sparsely furnished apartments, doing clerical jobs in hospitals and psychiatric wards and writing poetry which he would share with other poets and friends privately, in small gatherings or by mailing off entire manuscripts. He would throw away months' or years' worth of his own poems, once he decided he was done with a particular track of writing and begin again. He had poems published in ''Ally'', ''the the'', ''radar'', ''Alcatraz'', ''Redwood Coast Review'', ''Montserrat Review'', the anthology ''Cuts from the Barbershop'', and the anthology ''News of the Universe'' edited by

Robert Bly Robert Elwood Bly (December 23, 1926 – November 21, 2021) was an American poet, essayist, activist and leader of the mythopoetic men's movement. His best-known prose book is '' Iron John: A Book About Men'' (1990), which spent 62 weeks on ' ...

. Hall's writing was strongly intertwined with that of his friends such as F.A. Nettelbeck, Walter Martin, Stephen Kessler, and by the writers and musicians he loved including

Jean Genet Jean Genet (; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels ''The Thief's ...

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...

Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of ...

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

, and

Hank Williams Hank Williams (born Hiram Williams; September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century, he reco ...

. He had a

Beat poet The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generatione ...

's willingness to range widely over human experience and language, mixing literary, poetic, and pop culture references with passionate love of experience and wry

self-deprecation Self-deprecation is the act of reprimanding oneself by belittling, undervaluing, disparaging oneself, or being excessively modest. It can be used as a way to make complaints, express modesty, invoke optimal reactions or add humour. It may also be u ...

and wit. He commented "Like everybody else I want what the poem wants to do, I want to be there when it does what it wants to do. We make these things. They're weird things, they don't look like other things, but they're like themselves." Poet

noted "In Gregory Hall, "surrealism" is not a doctrine, but an admission of grief beyond his control."

Works

* ''Flame People'', Green Horse Press, 1977. Preface by

. * ''Inamorata'', Tollbooth Press, 2003.Full text of ''Inamorata''
/ref>

Unpublished manuscripts and letters

* ''Diary of a Desert Fox'' * ''Whoregasm'' * Folder Numbers 160, 161, 181, 182, 204, 215 in the F.A. Nettelbeck Collection at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

Libraries: Rare Books and Manuscripts.

Recordings

* Audio CD in ''Cuts From the Barbershop'' * Walter Martin & Greg Hall at KFJC January 2, 2005

References

External links

Hall worksJuly 03, 2009, Obituary

Selected poems in the anthology ''Cuts From the Barbershop''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hall, Greg American male poets Poets from California 2009 deaths 1946 births 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male writers