I expect my immortality will last about six seconds after my funeral. Donald Hall More Quotes by Donald Hall More Quotes From Donald Hall I loathe the trivialization of poetry that happens in creative writing classes. Teachers set exercises to stimulate subject matter: Write a poem about an imaginary landscape with real people in it. Write about a place your parents lived in before you were born. We have enough terrible poetry around without encouraging more of it. Donald Hall parentsyoupoetrypeople In anything you write - in a short story, a poem - there has to be a counter-motion; it can't go all in one direction. Donald Hall directionshortstoryyou I think my very best work came out when I was about 60, not when I was 20. I was publishing all the time when I was in my 20s, and some of those poems I still like. And there were a few after 60, and in my 70s, that I like. But they became fewer and fewer. Donald Hall bestthinkworktime I'd heard of writers who say they hate to write. Not me. I love to do it. Donald Hall saymehatelove Many times I have written something, and after it was published, I understood what I was saying. Donald Hall aftersayingsomethingunderstood However alert we are, antiquity remains an unknown, unanticipated galaxy. Donald Hall alertunknownremainsgalaxy I have to do draft after draft... It takes me a long time, but I love doing it, and I have to do it every day, or I feel slack. Donald Hall daymetimelove I've always felt that poetry was particularly erotic, more than prose was... I say that you read poems not with your eyes and not with your ears, but with your mouth. You taste it. Donald Hall youreyesyoupoetry It used to be that phrases and lines would come into my head, often many of them in a period of five days or a week, and maybe I didn't know what I was talking about, but the words had a kind of heaviness or deliciousness to them. Donald Hall headwordsknowtalking
