Deborah Anne Tall (March 16, 1951 – October 19, 2006) was an American writer and poet. From 1982 until 2006, she was a professor of literature and writing at

Hobart and William Smith Colleges Hobart and William Smith Colleges is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Geneva, New York. They trace their origins to Geneva Academy established in 1797. Students can choose from ove ...

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

Charles Simic Dušan Simić ( sr-cyr, Душан Симић, ; May 9, 1938 – January 9, 2023), known as Charles Simic, was a Serbian American poet and poetry co-editor of ''The Paris Review''. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1990 for '' The W ...

to receive the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize and was published by Sarabande Books. 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 The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

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 (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. 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 was a Private college, private college with three locations in the United States: Plainfield, Vermont; Port Townsend, Washington; and Seattle. The college offered undergraduate and graduate degree programs. With predecessor ins ...

, 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 from which she died in 2006.

Published works

Poetry *''Eight Colours Wide (1974)'' *''Ninth Life (1982)'' *''Come Wind, Come Weather (1988)'' *''Summons ( Sarabande Books, 2000)'' Nonfiction *''Island of the White Cow (1986)'' *''From Where We Stand: Recovering a Sense of Place (1993)'' *''A Family of Strangers ( Sarabande Books, 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 Memoirists from New York (state)