Deborah Anne Tall (March 16, 1951 – October 19, 2006) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

writer and poet. From 1982 until 2006, she was a professor of literature and writing at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and edited the literary journal, ''The Seneca Review''. She is the author of four books of poetry and three works of nonfiction and co-edited the anthology, ''The Poet's Notebook,'' with David Weiss and

Stephen Kuusisto Stephen Kuusisto is an American poet who is known for his work on depicting disabilities, specifically blindness. He is a professor at Syracuse University, where he teaches poetry and creative non-fiction. He also directs the Interdisciplinary Pr ...

. Her most recent book of poems, "Summons," was chosen by

Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; born May 9, 1938), known as Charles Simic, is a Serbian American poet and former co-poetry editor of the ''Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for ''The World Doesn' ...

to receive the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize and was published by

Sarabande Books Sarabande Books is an American not-for-profit literary press founded in 1994. It is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, with an office in New York City. Sarabande publishes contemporary poetry and nonfiction. Sarabande is a literary press whos ...

. Her memoir, "A Family of Strangers," chronicles her search for her father's missing relatives and her struggle to uncover the past her parents have tried to forget.Powell's Books, review and synopsis
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Life

Tall grew up in a middle class Jewish family in the Philadelphia suburbs. As a child she studied dance and piano. Her father was an engineer and her mother was a homemaker. She attended the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

at Ann Arbor, intending to major in philosophy, but switched her major to English instead. She graduated in three years. During her final year, she took up with a visiting professor, Tom MacIntyre, and the two subsequently moved to Ireland one summer in the 1970s. They spent five years on the island of Inishbofin, off the west coast of

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. They lived among a very small island population, and the experience is chronicled in her book, ''Island of the White Cow''. After her return to the United States, she attended

Goddard College Goddard College is a progressive education private liberal arts low-residency college with three locations in the United States: Plainfield, Vermont; Port Townsend, Washington; and Seattle, Washington. The college offers undergraduate and gra ...

, earning an MFA in Writing. She met husband and fellow poet, David Weiss, while living in New York City. While at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, they met fellow writers Stephen Scully and Rosanna Warren. She has two daughters, Zoe and Clea. In 2004, Tall was diagnosed with

inflammatory breast cancer Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is one of the most aggressive types of breast cancer. It can occur in women of any age (and, extremely rarely, in men, see male breast cancer). It is referred to as "inflammatory" due to its frequent presentation w ...

from which she died in 2006.

Published works

Poetry *''Eight Colours Wide (1974)'' *''Ninth Life (1982)'' *''Come Wind, Come Weather (1988)'' *''Summons (

, 2000)'' Nonfiction *''Island of the White Cow (1986)'' *''From Where We Stand: Recovering a Sense of Place (1993)'' *''A Family of Strangers (

, 2006)'' Edited *''The Poet's Notebook (1997)''

References

External links

* Sarabande Books, author pag

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tall, Deborah 1951 births 2006 deaths University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts alumni American women poets American women essayists 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American essayists 21st-century American women