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.

Reading Two Poems

by Donald Hall
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Portrait by Jack Smith

Donald Hall was a wonderful reader of his own work, and in the clips below we experience not only the poet’s voice but also an intimacy with his sadness and humor. A number of other readings, as well as interviews with the author and his nonfiction works, can be found in the Library.

VIDEO


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