Not all of the personal essays in this collection from (former) poet Donald Hall are about aging. There are pieces about eating, exercising, facial hair, New Hampshire, and being a poet. The title essay is about the joys of writing, especially rewriting, and about how "poetry abandoned me" around the time he turned eighty. (He is now 88.)
As befits a book from a poet, Essays After Eighty is lyrical, intimate, and brief. The first essay, "Out the Window," sets the stage well. It is about aging, and about melancholy joy of watching the world recur and change from the window of his New Hampshire farmhouse. I also enjoyed "Three Beards":
My present hairiness is monumental, and I intend to carry it into the grave. (I must avoid chemotherapy.) ... During the Civil War, beards were as common as sepsis.
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