Without
Subtitle: poems
By: Donald Hall.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 81
Subjects: Hall, Donald, 1928-  -- Marriage -- Poetry; Kenyon, Jane -- Poetry; Elegiac poetry, American; Death -- Poetry; Grief -- Poetry
First sentence: Daybreak until nightfall, he sat by his wife at the hospital as the chemotherapy dripped into the catheter in her heart.
Description: The dying of a beloved wife and fellow poet makes for a bleak and lonely tale.

But Donald Hall's poignant and courageous poetry, facing that dread fact, involves us all: the magnificent, humorous, and gifted woman, Jane Kenyon, who suffered and died; the doctors and nurses who tried but failed to save her; the neighbors, friends, and relatives who grieved for her; the husband who sat by her while she lived and afterward sat in their house alone with his pain, self-pity, and fury; and those of us who until now had nothing to do with it.