Donald Hall who died in 2018 at his farm on Eagle Pond in Wilmot, NH has been a pen pal of mine and a favorite writer for more than 50 years.  His poetry ensures him a niche in anthologies far into the future as did past honors including an honorary degree from the University of Michigan where he was a professor until 1976, the Medal of Arts, and the poet laureateship in 2006.  His children’s book,”The Ox Cart Man” may well prove to be his most lasting work, one that I read to my small daughters and now read to their children.  His books of reminiscences about his childhood summers on his grandparents’ farm where he and his second wife, the poet Jane Kenyon moved in 1976 are classics which I re-read every several years.  His textbooks about poetry, his interviews with poets like Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, and his short stories, books about baseball, and others mark him as one of the most prolific and skilled writers of his generation.

Imagine my disappointment then upon re-reading “Essays After Eighty” comprising 14 short works written between his 80th and 85th birthdays. I found them light-weight, repetitive, disorganized, self-pitying, and often just plain dull.  Looking back on my review of this book which I wrote 11 years ago when it was first published, I found to my surprise that I liked it very much then, so perhaps the change in my opinion is more due to the changes in me and my proximity to Hall’s descriptions of his life. Despite still being able to walk 4-5 miles/day, read and write, and remember important facts and figures like the starting line-up for the American League pennant-winning 1959 Chicago White Sox, it wasn’t too much of  stretch to see myself in Hall’s shoes as he is increasingly confined to watching birds out the window and getting around with a walker and wheelchair.  Perhaps, the encroaching reality of Life After 80 colored my view of his writing.

That being said, the best part of pulling this book off the shelf were the three letters tucked into the front, written to me by Hall between March, 2015 and September, 2017, only 8 months before he died. The letters were funny, filled with information about books, the Red Sox, and his reading, though he did indicate that his poetry writing days were over.  I’ll keep that Hall in my mind and forget about this final collection of  his work.