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Donald Hall, former poet laureate, dies at 89

By Karen Butler
United States President Barack Obama presents the 2010 National Medal of Arts Medal to poet Donald Hall in Washington, D.C. on March 2, 2011. Hall died this weekend at the age of 89. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI
1 of 2 | United States President Barack Obama presents the 2010 National Medal of Arts Medal to poet Donald Hall in Washington, D.C. on March 2, 2011. Hall died this weekend at the age of 89. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo

June 24 (UPI) -- Donald Hall, an author of more than 40 books who served as U.S. poet laureate in 2006, has died at his ancestral home in New Hampshire at the age of 89.

The Boston Globe said Hall's death was announced Saturday by Wendy Strothman, his literary executor.

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The Connecticut native's final collection of verse The Selected Poems of Donald Hall was published in 2015. His book of essays A Carnival of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety is due to go on sale this summer.

U.S. President Barack Obama presented Hall with the National Medal of Arts in 2011, The New York Times noted.

Hall is survived by Philippa Smith and Andrew Hall, his children from his first marriage to Kirby Thompson. They divorced in 1969 and Hall married poet Jane Kenyon, with that union lasting 23 years until Kenyon's death in 1995.

Additional survivors include five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

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