Killdeer: essay-poems

A meditation on the poetic process that stimulates both the intellect and the imagination.
- Barbara Carey, The Toronto Star

Hall manages to rescue the lyrical essay from its recondite excesses and turn it into something that's as adventurous as it is readable. Hall has called himself a "surruralist," and this book charts his development as a writer, but it also demonstrates and furthers that development.
- Paul Vermeersh, The Globe and Mail.

Hall is aware that he's aligned with an aesthetic of past decades that may not be fashionable, but he seems determined to keep its spirit alive by understanding what it tells us about our aesthetic today. To him I would give an award for unabashedly keeping an authentic Canadian poetic voice alive.
- The Montreal Gazette

I don't know Hall's work other than this book, which I glanced at and was immediately forced to sit down & read cover to cover. He gets my vote for Canadian book of 2012 and I was glad to see Killdeer receive Canada's Governor General's prize for poetry. It's a wonderful read, even if Hall is a bit of a curmudgeon.
- Ron Silliman

...a wonderfully provocative experience...
- Jeff Weingarten via The Bullcalf Review

Killdeer is a testament to the creative life as an act of faith and transformation.
- The Griffin Prize Judges' Citation

...encompassing the best of what folk art is meant to be, self-taught and working-class, as [Hall] carves poems from a collage of phrases, lines and stanzas, while still managing to produce a highly-crafted 'high' art.
- Rob McLennan

These pieces are written with such honesty and empathy that it is impossible to read them and not tremble.
&ndash Stevie Howell via Arc