H. Palmer Hall, 1942 - 2013

[Robert Whitsitt Amarillo Bay]

We are sorry to announce that H. Palmer Hall died in February. Palmer was the Amarillo Bay Poetry Editor from August 2001 through February 2005, and contributed five poems to Volume 3 Number 1 and six poems to Volume 14 Number 4.

Jerry Craven, co-founder of Amarillo Bay, released this statement.

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Palmer Hall was a man of many talents who had the discipline and energy to make use of his talents. Twenty-five years ago he single-handedly set up Pecan Grove Press, a fine university press that specialized in publishing books of poetry. As long as I have known Palmer, he has been a talented fiction writer and, especially, a fine poet. In fact I published his first poem to see print some 50 years ago in the Lamar University student literary magazine. I can still remember some of the lines in that remarkable poem.

The US military discovered in the young Palmer Hall a remarkable ability with language, so they trained him in Vietnamese and sent him into the war in Vietnam. After that he earned a Ph.D. in literature, and eventually became library director for St. Mary's University in San Antonio. He published a number of his own books with other presses, mostly poetry and all truly wonderful. In 2011 he published a wonderful collection of short stories, Into the Thicket, with Ink Brush Press.

A publishing writer, a distinguished professor, an innovative publisher, and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, H. Palmer Hall added much to Southwestern letters. His is a presence that will be much missed. Those of us fortunate enough to know him personally feel the loss of a good man who happened to be a talented man of letters.

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For more information about H. Palmer Hall, see his entry in Wikipedia.