Jett Whitehead-Donald Hall Collection

Jett Whitehead and Donald Hall corresponded regarding business and their personal lives.

Jett W. Whitehead is a book dealer specializing in modern poetry, specifically 20th century American and British poetry, and has been running Jett W. Whitehead Rare Books in Bay City, Michigan since 1991. He’s a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (ABAA), for which he served on the Board of Governors and Public Relations Committee, as well as a member of the Midwest Antiquarian Booksellers Association, for which he served on the Board of Directors. Moreover, he earned his undergraduate degree in Business Administration at Northern Michigan University, a master’s degree in creative writing and poetry at Central Michigan University and has published numerous articles on modern poetry and book collecting.

Donald Andrew Hall Jr. (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018) was an American poet born in Hamden, Connecticut September 20, 1928. His poetry often touched upon life in rural New England, as well as baseball, and he was also known for his essays, plays, journalism, children’s literature, and memoirs. He wrote more than fifty books in his lifetime, and was a scholar and educator, having taught at Stanford University, Bennington College, and the University of Michigan. He earned an A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard in 1951 and a B. Litt. From Christ Church, Oxford, in 1953. He eventually married poet Jane Kenyon in 1972, who passed away following a Leukemia diagnosis in April of 1995. Hall’s Penultimate work was an eleven-song cycle regarding mortality, “Mortality Mansions: Songs of Love and Loss After 60.” He was the Poet Laureate of New Hampshire from 1984 to 1989, as well as the fourteenth U.S. Poet Laureate in 2006. He was also awarded the 2010 National Medal of Arts. Donald Hall passed away June 23, 2018.