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Halfway Down the Hall
New and Selected Poems
Wesleyan Poetry Series
Sales Date: 1998-09-25
250 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in
A generous gathering of the best poems, both previously published and uncollected, from Rachel Hadas's career.
Rachel Hadas brings an acute perception and a rich education to her exquisitely crafted poetry. As James Merrill wrote, Hadas's "honeyed words and bracing forms . . . over and over bring the mind to its senses." Rooted in the domestic and illuminated by Hadas's lifelong engagement with classics, the poems gathered here, many in traditional forms, draw out the relationships between life, love, time and art. This collection will be welcomed by all who love Hadas's strongly etched lines and passionate intelligence.
Rachel Hadas is Professor of English at Rutgers University. Her books include Indelible (2001), Living in Time (1990), Pass It On (1989), The Empty Bed (1995), A Son from Sleep (1987), and Slow Transparency (1983).
"Hadas has brought together gems from her previous 11 books and prefaced them with 33 new poems, providing her readers with a delightful retrospective celebration of her work...Throughout, Hadas deftly balances her abilities as a highly cerebral verbal artisan with strong, down-to-earth doses of womanly wisdom and insight. Highly recommended."
~Library Journal
"What a generous collection this is — a whole life, flesh and spirit, brought to light. Rachel Hadas has an uncanny eye, an unerring ear, urgent sympathies, and a rich imagination. This gathering is a book, not for the library but for the bedside table — to help explain the day and prepare for the night."
~J. D. McClatchy
"Halfway Down the Hall is a remarkable achievement. The poems are urgent, contemplative, and finely wrought. In them, antiquity illuminates the present as Rachel Hadas finds in ordinary human acts 'what never was and what is eternal'."
~Grace Schulman