Achieve A Carnival Of Losses: Notes Nearing Ninety Originated By Donald Hall Listed As Paper Copy

bet if someone is an ardent fan of Donald Hall's poetry, that person would revel in this latest collection of essays written in his lates.
The novelist Ann Patchett is one such fan and has heartily endorsed the collection, which is how I had heard of it.
While somewhat familiar with Hall's poems less so his children's books and criticism, I had a hard time mustering up much excitement for most of these short snippets on a wide variety of topics, many of which involve lots of his relatives that most people will never have heard of.
As a result, those essays were hard to get into and did not keep my attention fully, There was a middle section on poets that was a little bit more interesting, but uneven, Some wellknown poets were mentioned like T, S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams, but others were lesser known and the anecdotes varied in their level of engagement, A few pieces stood out for meone on necropoetry that talks about the poetry he wrote after losing his second wife to cancer and how poetry and grief are companions.
One that shocked me a little toward end was called "Fucking," but that one was not boring at all!! Wish someone had edited these essays more and found a more effective organization for them since everything came off as a little bit random.
. . but with sprinkled gems throughout, it is nice to see the settled brain in any case Reading this was a lot like sitting around with your funny, sometimes cantankerous, uncle and listening to him reminisce about his life.
You come away with stories about people you know, stories about people you have heard of, and some moments of grace and insight into the life of a loved one that you only knew by their role uncle, father, neighbor until you stopped to listen and saw them as young man with dreams, lover, husband, friend.
I read this final book of Donald Hall's close on the heels of his Essays After Eighty You can find that review here.
However, I did not want to review two growing old books, one after the other, especially one with a title about losses.
At the time that I read the book, I still had all of my aunts and uncles and both parents alive and I'm not a child.
I have seen that they have had to live through the losses of loved ones and the loss of health, but they have continued to live.
This book is about living even as it is also about losing, and there is much to be learned from Hall's story.
Not to mention, as I have come to realize, there is much to learn from Hall's writing, He remained a master writer to the very end he died in June of this year, no wonder as he continued to revise to extraordinary lengths.
In his first essay "You Are Old," he writes: "You are old when an essay of reminiscence takes eightyfour drafts, " However, he is comparing that number to the numbers he mentioned when he was younger up to sixty! Clearly, he hones his craft more than the rest of us.


Because Hall writes from the vantage point of nearing ninety, "he feels free to reveal, . . several vivid examples of 'the worst thing I ever did' which is different from someone trying to keep an untarnished image of him or herself.
However, be prepared for an entire essay only two paragraphs, one half of a page dedicated to the F word, It is on pageof apage book, Some will get the book for that essay alone and others will want to burn the book, I wouldn't go that far, I both bought the book and also dislike that particular essay, I don't want obscene words in my head that will come out at random sometime in the future if I fall into my father's stage of Alzheimer's or have a stroke and the only words I remember are obscene.
It may sound funny on paper or in a movie, but in real life, it's not humorous at all,

Here are the great parts: amazing writing, writing of images that make this book and his Essays After Eighty required reading for some medical students.
Hall captures so incredibly well what aging can look like that medical students are asked to read the book so that they will have some understanding of their older patients, some understanding of what the ailments of growing older feel like.
His essay "Solitude Double Solitude" is nothing short of amazing I'm running our of superlatives for Hall's writing and his final sentence was gutwrenching.


A surprising element of reading this book happened as Hall recounted his life with various poetpeers, These were poets who were famous in their day, and some I had never even heard of, Hall didn't expect to be remembered for too long either, and I think, perhaps, his prose will outlast his poetry! Nonetheless, I read these chapters at the same time that I was pondering legacy.
Not many people will have their names remembered for years upon years, but each person matters, Each person brings something to the world of living, whether it be for ill or good,

Hall's final essay "Tree Day" is the perfect essay to end on, a perfect transition from one generation to the next.
I do recommend the book, It pains me to say I did not like or admire this book which was cobbled together from this and that in a most calculated fashion to "create" a book when there wasn't one.
I was also surprised my how this particular assemblage of little pieces seemed to expose too much selfinterest, selfsatisfaction, high regard for oneself.
Sad that this is the last publicationdidn't serve him well, Donald Hall who died last year produced a final book of prose subtitled Notes Nearing Ninety, A work of remarkable candor and charm his prose has not suffered from the advent of great age, though it is a subject he treats with wryness, humor and sometimes despair.
A number of his essays profile various writers he met throughout his illustrious career and will be of interest to those of a literary bent.
The more generalized essays will be enjoyed by anyone fortunate enough to read them, I loved these essays by Donald Hall who, though struggling with all the troubles of old age, nonetheless shared a lifetime of living and the joys and tears being human beings.
Lovely. A beautiful and meandering book written by poet Donald Hall as he neared ninety he died several months before hitting that milestone.
Topics that the book covers are aging, reminiscences of fellow poets, his life and marriage with poet Jane Kenyon, family history, and living on a New Hampshire farm that had been in his family for years.


To me the strengths of the book were the parts that touched on aging, realizing that there is so little literature written by people past their mids, let alone in the mid to lates.
Hall lays out the landscape to a life that many of us hope for dealing with struggles of that age means at least we're still alive then!.
I

loved his admitting that he would make sure to go to bed later than his women companions and then make sure to wake up before they did, so that they couldn't observe him washing out his dentures or putting them back in! There are lots of delicate moments like this in the book of essays.


I felt like his reminiscences of fellow poets was the weakest part of the book even though those parts were still interesting, though often of minor anecdotes that probably meant much more to Hall than anybody else in the world.


Throughout these essays, Hall maintains a self of humor, along with a wonder at the aging process, .