Poetry is what I've done my whole life. And every important thing in my life had found itself into poems. Donald Hall findhaveimportant Change image and share on social
Friends die, friends become demented, friends quarrel, friends drift with old age into silence. Donald Hall agedementeddie Change image and share on social
Obviously, death is ahead of me. I don't look forward to dying one little bit. But, you know, I simply don't worry about it because it's going to happen to me as it does to anybody. Donald Hall aheadbitedeath Change image and share on social
There's a great deal of stripping away; in early drafts, I may say the same thing two or three times, and each may be appropriate, but I try to pick the best and improve it. I work on sound a great deal, and I will change a word or two, revise punctuation and line breaks, looking for the sound I want. Donald Hall breakchangedeal share on social
I have written some poetry and two prose books about baseball, but if I had been a rich man, I probably would not have written many of the magazine essays that I have had to do. But, needing to write magazine essays to support myself, I looked to things that I cared about and wanted to write about, and certainly baseball was one of them. Donald Hall baseballbookcare share on social
In anything you write - in a short story, a poem - there has to be a counter-motion; it can't go all in one direction. Donald Hall counterdirectionmotion Change image and share on social
However alert we are, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. Donald Hall alertantiquitygalaxy Change image and share on social
Not everything in old age is grim. I haven't walked through an airport for years, and wheelchairs are the way to travel. Donald Hall ageairportgrim Change image and share on social
As I grew older - collapsing into my seventies, glimpsing ahead the cliffs of the eighties, colliding into eighty-five - poetry abandoned me. Donald Hall abandonaheadcliff Change image and share on social
In the fifties, no one wore beards. In Eisenhower's day, as in the time of the Founding Fathers, all chins were smooth, while during the Civil War, beards were as common as sepsis. Donald Hall beardchincivil Change image and share on social