SOURCE: A review of Without, in Poetry, Vol. 173, No. 4, February, 1999, p. 312.

In the following positive review, Ullman compliments Hall's candor and his ability to put his grief into words in Without.

Grief's soundings—their depth and intricacy—arise from Donald Hall's thirteenth poetry collection as naturally as mist over water, even as they also provide the harshness from which the book takes its form. Without is described by the publisher as “a companion volume” to Hall's most recent collection, The Old Life, which also is autobiographical but covers a greater territory of Hall's life up to the present and offers names, events, and gossipy or literary recollections that might appeal to a reader of biography as well as poetry.

Without, in contrast, is more focused and, understandably, more steeped in feeling that is never excessive yet never lets up. It trains a magnifying beam on the fifteen months...