SOURCE: “With Jane and Without: An Interview with Donald Hall,” in Massachusetts Review, Vol. 39, No. 4, Winter, 1998–1999, pp. 493–510.

In the following interview, Hall discusses his relationship with his late wife and how he has coped emotionally since her death.

Anyone acquainted with the story of Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon cannot help but stand in awe of the irony which, if it appeared in fiction, would appall by its tear-jerking manipulation. The reality, as I stand before Jane Kenyon's grave, leaves me saddened and numb.

The lines on their shared stone are from Kenyon's poem, “Afternoon at MacDowell.” Although she wrote it with Hall in mind when he, as he has said, was “supposed to die,” they now stand in testimony to Kenyon, and look, mistakenly, like words he must have written for her:

I BELIEVE IN THE MIRACLES OF ART BUT WHAT PRODIGY WILL KEEP YOU SAFE BESIDE...