SOURCE: “Donald Hall: An Interview by Liam Rector,” in American Poetry Review, Vol. 18, No. 1, January–February, 1989, pp. 39–46.

In the following interview, Hall discusses his body of work and the state of contemporary poetry and poetry criticism.

[Rector:] You've written poignantly about time and generation. Jose Ortega y Gasset had a scheme for generation:

1–15 Childhood

15–30 Youth

30–45 Initiation

45–60 Dominance

60–75 Old Age, “Outside of Life”

How have these moments moved in consort with the time of your life, your work, and the scheme of literary generations as you've experienced them?

[Hall:] Schemes irritate me. Maybe this scheme annoys me because I'm supposed to move “outside of life” in a few months and I'm damned if I'm ready to. Rigidities, separations get my back up. Maybe I left childhood at fourteen and remained adolescent until forty-three. I like the word “dominance”—and I suppose I felt it first at about fifty, though...