His entire life, Donald Hall has dedicated himself to the written word, putting together a storied career as a poet, essayist, and memoirist. Now, in the "unknown, unanticipated galaxy" of very old age, he is writing essays that 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 . . ." 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." AUTHOR: Donald Hall, who served as poet laureate of the United States from 2006 to 2007, is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a recipient of the National Medal of the Arts, awarded by the president.
