New Hampshire Bookstore Celebrates New Poet Laureate

The village of New London, New Hampshire, can take some credit for the success of new U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall. The rural community of New London, especially the farm where generations of Hall's family have lived, has served as his lifelong inspiration and his home for the past 30 years. That same community is also home to 11-year-old Morgan Hill Bookstore.

Morgan Hill Bookstore in New London, New Hampshire

Hall is no stranger to the bookstore and its owners, Peggy Holliday and Connie Appel. "He has been a friend to the store since we opened," Appel told BTW. "He did the first reading and signing we ever had, and our booksigning event (held on June 29 at the town's public library), was the first one he did after being named Poet Laureate."

Officially appointed by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington as the Library's Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, Hall's most recent book of poetry, White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1947 - 2006 (Houghton Mifflin), sold out quickly at the crowded reading.

Hall has published 15 books of poetry, many books of prose, and several children's books, including the Caldecott Medal winner, The Ox-Cart Man, illustrated by Barbara Cooney (Puffin). "We had been stocking up on copies of all of his books in anticipation of the reading," Appel said. "The day of the announcement, I called Houghton Mifflin and ordered seven or eight more cartons of his books. We ended up selling 116 copies of White Apples ... at the reading."

Sales of White Apples around the country have been impressive, the owners noted, especially for a book of poetry with a list price of $30. "We have a strong poetry section here," Appel told BTW. "We carry Mary Oliver, [former Poet Laureates] Ted Kooser and Billy Collins, and the classics, like Robert Frost. Our poetry section is small but interesting and eclectic, like our store."

Store owners Connie Appel and Peggy Holliday

Hall's direct, declarative style, based in a rural milieu, has been compared to the work of Frost by Billy Collins and others. "[Hall is] very personal in his writing and tied to this area," said Appel. "He grew up here; his farm is 10 minutes away. He is so interested in popularizing poetry [that] he makes himself very accessible."

New London, population 4,000, is hardly a one-Caldecott-honoree-town, Holliday pointed out. Renowned children's author and illustrator Tomie DePaola is a local resident and "has also been unbelievably generous" to the store.

As an example of Hall's gracious treatment of those who read and sell his books, Appel recalled the morning his appointment was announced: "I phoned him to congratulate him and just to check that our previously scheduled event [on June 29] would not be a problem for him." According to Appel, the nation's 14th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry answered with characteristic simplicity, "There is no place I would rather be." --Nomi Schwartz