Deborah Tall laughing

My dear friend the poet Deborah Tall passed away last Thursday evening after a long fight with cancer.  She died at home in the company of her husband, the poet David Weiss, her daughters Clea and Zoe, and a group of lifelong friends.  Deborah died just as she lived for there was poetry in the room.  Friends recited poems by William Butler Yeats, Donald Justice, and the work of many other poets who Deborah loved.

A little over a month ago I had the opportunity to read with Deborah in Geneva, New York.  I also had the chance to tell many of her friends and colleagues at Hobart and William Smith Colleges that it was Deborah who made me a writer by way of example.   When I first met her I was a little over thirty and still writing in a kind of neo-romantic funhouse of moods and false starts.  I wrote when I felt like it and I had very sloppy habits to say the least.

I saw Deborah working steadily and with a genuine ardor for the life of the writer.  We would drive together on the back roads between Ithaca, New York and Geneva, an hour to the north and Deborah would even write poems in the car, dictating lines to me as she drove.

I saw how a real poet writes.  I absorbed her lessons and became richer because of her exemplary gift of poetry and practice.

Deborah exulted in the triumphs of writers.  She loved her students and followed their works and lives with pleasure.  She was also a strong and committed listener and when her former undergraduate student John D’Agata began to think about the ways that poets might write a new type of nonfiction that he called “the lyric essay”  Deborah not only championed John’s idea, she made room for his explorations of that form in her literary magazine, “The Seneca Review”.  We are all the richer for Deborah’s enthusiasm and intellect.

Her new book, “A Family of Strangers” which was published by Sarabande Press just before her death is a stunning lyric memoir about a family secret that was created by the holocaust and actuated in post-war mid 20th century America.  Her father literally hid relatives from his American family.  Deborah uncovers lives and stories with a poet’s eye for the lost fragments of ardor that make communities possible.  Her book is a beautiful devotional discovery about the nature of personal history that is so often damaged by larger histories.  I know of no book like hers. Reading “A Family of Strangers” one feels the necessity of Deborah’s art and the seriousness and beauty of her craft.

I will miss Deborah Tall for the rest of my days and I shall endeavor to live and work as she taught so many of us to do.  I should add here that Deborah had a tremendous sense of humor and she was always able to laugh at the lovely strangeness of our planet.  I pledge to remember her laughter as well.  And I haven’t even begun to talk about her love of music and her pride in her daughter Zoe’s studies in the music conservatory at Oberlin College.  And I haven’t even begun to think about her love of travel and her pleasure at hearing of her daughter Clea’s travel plans that include exploring Israel and the southern steppes of Russia.

Laughter. Music. Poems. Friends. Daily practice. A good book. Another good book.

SK

P.S.  Deborah touched many lives.  Here are just a few comments from others...

Hobart and William Smith Colleges;  Little Red's Recovery Room;  CAHIERS DE COREY; Isola di Rifiuti; Professor Tall

Comments

[Georgia Whitney]

Steve, I'm so sorry for your loss.

Georgia

[blue girl]

What a beautiful tribute. I'm so sorry for your loss.

I'm sure she felt blessed and lucky to have known you, too.

[Lance Mannion]

Damn.

Damn.

Damn!

[Jennifer]

Oh, I'm so sorry... What a very nice post about a very sad occasion.

[Vicki Forman]

I once received the most lovely acceptance letter from Professor Tall on a tricky essay I'd written and submitted to the Seneca Review. She was warm and generous and just lovely in her words of kindness. I am sorry to hear of her passing. My thoughts are with you.

[Steve]

Thank you Vicki.

[Lin Zhou]

Golden Falls
-a maple in October
To Deborah Tall

Year around
Dawn and night
Your crown is sculptured
from
The warm prayer of snow
The moist sigh of rainbow
The blessed echo of aurora
The bloody chant of twilight
Into October pure gold

Your golden crown is nature of
Poetry, beauty and grace
The gift you return to the earth
Mid October is the right time
To give out your gold
Let your brilliance go

Golden falls, your giving
Nobody could cease
The love and free
Flowing in the air
Back to the land

Golden falls, your giving
In quiet falling
Sunlight is trembling
Pierce the blue tears of
Dreaming sky

Lin Zhou from Ithaca

I wrote this for honoring Deborah

[Connie]

Thank you so much for sharing this with all of us. Steve left for Ireland earlier today but I will make sure he sees this as soon as he is back. He will be so pleased.

[David Simms]

I never met Deborah Tall. But we corresponded, brief letters, notes really, over the years. First after I'd read "White Cow" and my dissertation, a study in Ireland, was published. Once when I ran across a poem of hers that especially struck a chord. Somewhere along the way when she told me of her plans for visiting Poland and a new memoir. Later when I requested signed copies of "White Cow" for close friends. Later still when a friend of mine got a signed copy from her for me! Deborah Tall was always gracious and enthusiastic in her correspondence and interested in my work. A few times I was tempted to send a poem or two of mine to Seneca Review but never thought it would be good enough. I hadn't been aware of her illness. I was stunned when I saw the "in memoriam" display for her from Sarabande in my new issue of "Poets & Writers". A little bit of light has gone out for me.

[Connie and Steve]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us David. Clearly Deborah touched the lives of many...

[Diane Farhi]

I was a college friend of Debbie Tall's, and was somehow motivated to google her just now, wondering what had become of her. I am shocked to learn of her passing away. I remember her very fondly. Clearly, she went on to make a significant contribution to the world. I will miss her, too, just like the rest of those who have known her more recently. Diane