The former US Poet Laureate contemplates life, death, and the view
from his window in these "alternately lyrical and laugh-out-loud funny"
essays (New York Times).
His entire life, Donald Hall dedicated himself to the written word,
putting together a storied career as a poet, essayist, and memoirist.
Here, in the "unknown, unanticipated galaxy" of very old age, his essays
startle, move, and delight.
In Essays After Eighty, Hall ruminates on his past: "thirty was
terrifying, forty I never noticed because I was drunk, fifty was best
with a total change of life, sixty extended the bliss of fifty . . ." He
also addresses his present: "When I turned eighty and rubbed
testosterone on my chest, my beard roared like a lion and gained four
inches."
Most memorably, Hall writes about his enduring love affair with his
ancestral Eagle Pond Farm and with the writing life that sustains him
every day: "Yesterday my first nap was at 9:30 a.m., but when I awoke I
wrote again."
"Alluring, inspirational hominess . . . Essays After Eighty is a
treasure . . . balancing frankness about losses with humor and
gratitude."--Washington Post
"A fine book of remembering all sorts of things past, Essays After
Eighty is to be treasured."--Boston Globe
