Cactus indicates a sharp-needled plant that grows in arid ground. It’s a very relevant title for this collection of forty-two poems. A too familiar review, On the Edge and Not Over, does not miss the mark of the edge in common to all these poems. Their author has survived suicide attempts; indeed he has been to the edge, and writes from that perspective, also from the perspective of father, son, brother, romantic partner—with people, things, and places he loves.  Suicide, he does not flinch from writing about his suicide attempts.  To sit down and really read this book is to admire his courage in living and his skill with language. Cactus, this collection of 42 poems, lives in fertile ground. Hall laments, but has no delusions; if truth is beauty, there’s beauty here.

The theologian Paul Tillich authored the book The Courage To Be. The great lesson of poetry is: be yourself. Sound like yourself. Hall sounds like no one else. One constant is that he writes listening to music, and his tastes are eclectic, ranging from blue grass to classical. But what do his poems look like?  His varied, often indented lines are reminiscent of Maryanne Moore, Amy Clampitt, and A.R. Ammons, whom he alludes to. Poems sound and look different from prose; that’s clear on these pages, in these lines. Their diction ranges from high style to the plain spoken. No poem is more plain spoken that “blood lust,” an unflinching look at the self, that concludes: but I still want my children (&/ their partners) to process/ past the naked scarred stiff trunk/ and see me.

Who is Phillip Hall?  The speaker in these poem, and a person of depth and complexity, like his readers. But also a survivor, as was previously mentioned. While many have not attempted suicide, they likely know people who have.  In “kith ‘n’ kin” he says “I stay alive/ only for others in a family..”  In the next poem “Gongoozler’s Lament” he says “I have my own/ rhythms for approaching swing/ bridges and locks..”

In “Dark Matter” an early image “the underside of prickly/ bushes” accents the book’s title. Further down the page Hall says  “I have been blessed/ with so much, ring those bells/ like an air-conditioned road train captain roaring/ and a top paddock clipped/ to bulk billed order..” The simile surprises; the lines, seen, heard, felt smack of a journey. The book’s last section, Set Shots” are notes on many of the poems. The set shot on “Dark Matter” begins: “I love dirt (or acoustic) music, especially bluegrass & classical.”  From Australia to America, one bluegrass musician comes to mind Keith Whitley, who fought his own demons, and whose music is renown, sounding like no other. “Dark Matter,” the poem concludes with “the bent of dirt/ music, guitar and banjo picking circles, fiddled/ improvisation where even the sinking broke/ tremor deeply/ like a double bass doghouse    bulging/ at the seams. These lines, like the ones that precede them, “speak for themselves,” no comment needed. They’re at the center of this book.

In addition to family, loved ones, and self, and the loss of loved ones, other concerns are religion, football, painting, sculpture, of course music, politics and animals, namely greyhound dogs. “Animal Liberation” consists of two parts, Hounded, dedicated to Charlie Brown and Sir Jay Jay Raids Rich, for Billy Blue.  Both are rescue dogs, meaning in fact Hall saved their lives (in turn they saved his.). It’s a fact that, at least not terribly long ago) many greyhounds, when racing days were over, were, to use the euphemism, put down.  Phillip Hall doesn’t say he’s done something noble, but he has, and he’s written about his rescues “as Billy Blue he is my knight/ in shining brindle” with great affection, no hint sentimentality, because the fine, original writing “doesn’t go there.  Such a beautiful, powerful poem! From the first part, Hounded:  “I could cup the palm/ of my hand over your cranium, fingers scratching/ that spot/ behind your ears, courting for you/ a ceasefire in this alien/ space of comfort & love & treats..” Nothing serves like an example. Can it get any better than this?  Poetry. This poet, at his best.

Much could be said. Hall’s concerns, like his forms, the shapes the poems take, are varied. Note the indented lines of “Sacred Ground,” and in the longer poem “Unhinged,” the latter have a formality that is lacking in the plainer forms of “What I Would Have Missed” and “Bloodlust.”  Not to say one form is better. In all the poems the form suits the content.  The longest poem, “I Am the Vine!” has a prologue, an epilogue” and six sections. Judeo-Christian, and Greek and Roman in its concerns, the prologue’s narrator talks of “anxieties arching over us/ like bond:/ In this book I met Norman’s feckless charm and formidable saintliness dressed as an irascible devil’s scamp;”  The book is “a personal memoir/ of Springwood Olympus.”  The poem talks of religion and mythology. Norman Lindsay, alluded to in the prologue, is significant, as are sculptors, painters, photographers named at the start of each section, and the poet Judith Wright, in the epilogue.  Art is also a concern “Where the Bee Sucks ” that has a journal feel in Hall’s mention of neighborhood, sports, politics “on a day when Trump has won,” and literature, Under Milkwood’s village surrealism:” While “Bee” is personal, the form, the indentions and varied line lengths evoke the sprawl of a village.

At the heart of the poet’s emotional landscape his partner, his daughter and other family and loved ones.  His love of life, if you will.  He has said bluntly he stays alive for them. He has also said, in several poems that the isn’t enough. However, on the page he is enough, for readers who want the real thing: poems beautiful for their honesty and elegance.  Cactus is a book like no other. Phillip Hall sounds like none but himself, human: afraid, illuminating, celebratory, grateful in poems worth reading and reading again.