So, this is the second memoir of Donald Hall's I've read, and I still haven't read his poetry. It's not like I actively sought this book out though - it was laid out on the $4.99 table at the Harvard Bookstore when I visited Cambridge last week, and I remember String Too Short to Be Saved with much fondness... and this was only $4.99...

In many ways, this memoir was too personal for me - perhaps an odd thing to say, but what I mean is that Hall assumes a basic knowledge of important literary figures in America in his reader, and drops names all over the book so casually I found myself a little lost at some parts.

The other thing that confused me is the somewhat disconnected nature of his thoughts within each chapter. There are quite a few digressions even within this short memoir (especially near the beginning), which made me feel a little as though I were reading a long poem (whose meaning I have to work harder to grasp from what seems to be a series of disparate images) rather than a piece of prose.

The life Hall leads as a poet is a fascinating one, though I wonder how poets who are rather more self-made (not participating in literary societies at Harvard/Oxford or belonging to an academic community at Ann Arbor, but more Wallace Stevens-like, perhaps) grow without a community of like-minded people sustaining their creativity.