James Baker Hall was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1935. He was raised in a southern family of means and social standing, only to have a family scandal turn tragic when he was eight years old. This trauma, and its enduring consequence, would shape Hall's life work as an artist, which began when he took up photography at age eleven.
In 1973, Hall came back to Lexington to teach at the University of Kentucky and, for the next thirty years, would act as director of the creative writing program. In 2003, he retired as professor emeritus, having vastly influenced the next generation of Kentucky writers. Notable students include: Maurice Manning, T. Crunk, Patrick O'Keeffe, Rebecca Gayle Howell.
Hall was prolific as both a writer and a visual artist, publishing widely in both arenas. In 2001, Hall was named the Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.[3] He was married to novelist and poet Mary Ann Taylor-Hall. He died on June 25, 2009, in his home outside Sadieville, Kentucky.[4]
Appear to Disappear, City Gallery, Downtown Arts Center, Lexington, KY. 2006.
Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy, Smith Berry Winery Art Gallery, New Castle, KY. 2004.
Portraits of Kentucky Writers, Ann Tower Gallery, Lexington, KY. 2002.
Filmography
Firesticks, Premiere: Collective for Living Cinema, NYC. 1985.
About Hall's work
"He makes our terror come alive – and our knowledge and our joy – in his beautiful singing." --Gerald Stern
"James Baker Hall has consistently pursued in his poetry a trajectory that is deeply authentic. It has produced writing of daring and delicacy, over a period long enough to make it plain that this is not a momentary brilliance but a sustained vision. He has been dedicated to making the language reflect the surprise, the turns and leaps of memory and recurrent apparition, in which pain and beauty are often indistinguishable. This new collection [The Mother on the Other Side of the World] displays an intimate authority and mystery of tone that are the fulfillment of a genuine gift and uncompromising devotion to it." --W.S. Merwin
"The poems are pure, untainted by irony, naked and delighted with being. If there is one unyielding source and destination in all these poems, it is love – people and things worth loving, and the quiet mantra that's always making itself matter. Though you might find yourself laughing or wincing, you understand that above all, James Baker Hall is a serious poet. He means what he says…. Hall is the real deal, the real, beautiful deal." -- Maurice Manning
Selected awards
2001 - Poet Laureate of Kentucky
1993 - Southern Arts Council Fellowship
1986 - Al Smith Fellowship
1986 - Honorable Mention, San Francisco Art Institute Film Festival
