Donald Hall (1928–2018) was born in Connecticut and lived and worked on his great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire. Across more than six decades and twenty books of poetry, Hall’s New England practicality, tenacious passion, and intellectual independence marked a path for literature. His memoir Unpacking the Boxes, published on his eightieth birthday, is excerpted as “Gaudeamus Igitur” in our Library. Hall was a noted essayist, children’s book author, fiction writer, and a US Poet Laureate. Among his many publications are the essay collections Essays After Eighty and A Carnival of Losses: Notes on Nearing Ninety.

Poetry Readings from Our Interview with Don

Audio Readings

Ox Cart Man (preview)

Don read his work and talked, at his Eagle Pond home in Wilmot, New Hampshire, with Narrative’s executive editor Pat Gage and assistant editor Caitlin McKenna for a profile, which will appear in print in an upcoming issue of Narrative. Despite an ongoing battle with his health, Hall continues to write every day, as he has for the past forty years. His memoir, an excerpt of which you can read in Narrative, is scheduled for release later this year.


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