I'm finding.... (and why) in These titles mean nothing.

.... Donald Hall interesting.

Private note asked me why I find Donald Hall interesting.

OK, here goes.

1. Hall was my name before I was married. It’s a common English name. Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia from the mid-1950’s (which we got new at country school - that was a highlight of my education, and which I bought a used copy of from a library sale and still own) listed the 25 most common names in the United States and Hall was about number 17. I wonder what it would be now. My dad had a cousin named Donald who was a car dealer in Chicago who had two sons who became doctors, both specialists, one for eyes, ears, nose and throat and the other I can’t remember or maybe never knew.

2. Donald Hall is a poet. He’s very old now but still alive. He taught at Ann Arbor when former Wisconsin Public Radio personality Jean Feraca (also a poet) was there. She and Hall’s second wife Jane Kenyon (a poet too, yada yada yada) were in a seminar of his.

3. I aspire to be a poet. In the same way I aspire to be an astronaut. Neither is likely or even possible but I can still look up at the sky or value the way words fit together.

4. Donald Hall returned to his ancestral farm in New Hampshire the same year I returned to my (slightly) ancestral farm - 1975. Hall’s farm is a tiny bit like mine. He has a cutter sleigh in his barn and so do I.

5. He has made his living writing. He writes commercially. Sports, children’s books, criticism. He writes what he needs to make his living. He also writes his poetry. Seriously.

6. Wife Jane Kenyon died of leukemia. He took care of her and of course documented it in his writing. The Best Day, the Worst Day is a beautiful book. I own it and I would lend it to you if you were closer. I also have a copy of Remembering Poets about Frost and Pound and Thomas and Eliot. I had a copy of his short stories but I mailed it to the teacher from Hawaii I met on train and haven’t heard back yet. It was called The Ideal Bakery and was published in 1987. I loved it (in part) for the story about the victim of college rape. He was ahead of his time - of course time is just a construct. Nothing is new.

7. He answers letters. He dictates to a machine and employs typists, who also type daily drafts and revisions of his poems and he has a fresh copy of those he’s working on each day.

8. He has a likable and accessible way about him. If you read the interview I linked to above, you will see how he treats other poets. He is free with his impressions and experiences, tells what seems to be the truth, yet is kind as well. I like that in a person.

9. He talks about the writing process and about editing. He was poetry editor for the Paris Review. That relates to the Scissors book (Stephane Michaka) I mentioned in the previous entry. We all edit. I just went back and ‘fixed’ this entry. I just took out ‘a bunch’ of words.

10. He’s given me lots to think about. He is an extraordinary, ordinary person.

11. Here is a link to a whole bunch of pictures of Donald Hall. If you go through them all, you might find a picture of the cutter (sleigh). I can guarantee there will be a cat picture or two.

Reminder: If you want to open links without leaving Prosebox, right click on link and click on Open in new tab.

Thanks for the question, private noter.

Last updated August 26, 2016