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.

The Writing Process

by Donald Hall

“I have always been fascinated by how other people write,” Donald Hall told us during an interview at his home. Sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of the habits of poets—including Dylan Thomas, Richard Wilbur, and William Stafford—Hall also detailed his own painstaking methods, and what he looked for while revising his materials over hundreds of drafts.

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