Hall, Donald Andrew, Jr (1928– )

US poet. An editor of numerous poetry anthologies, he is best known as a tough, witty lyric poet who employs simple, straightforward language, as seen in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993). He became the US Poet Laureate in 2006.

Hall also wrote plays, literary criticism, children's stories, books about baseball, and a memoir, String Too Short to Be Saved (1961). Other collections include Exiles and Marriages (1955), The One Day (1988), and White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946–2006 (2006). His children's book Ox-Cart Man (1979) won the 1980 Caldecott Medal.

Hall was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He earned bachelor degrees from Harvard University in 1951 and Oxford University in 1953. After teaching at the University of Michigan (1957–75), he then became a freelance writer and broadcaster. He served as poet laureate of New Hampshire 1984–89.