Coming to Age: Growing Older with Poetry
272
Coming to Age: Growing Older with Poetry
272Hardcover
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Overview
At eighty-two, the novelist Penelope Lively wrote: "Our experience is one unknown to most of humanity, over time. We are the pioneers." Coming to Age is a collection of dispatches from the great poet-pioneers who have been fortunate enough to live into their later years.
Those later years can be many things: a time of harvesting, of gathering together the various strands of the past and weaving them into a rich fabric. They can also be a new beginning, an exploration of the unknown. We speak of "growing old." And indeed, as we too often forget, aging is growing, growing into a new stage of life, one that can be a fulfillment of all that has come before.
To everything there is a season. Poetry speaks to them all. Just as we read newspapers for news of the world, we read poetry for news of ourselves. Poets, particularly those who have lived and written into old age, have much to tell us. Bringing together a range of voices both present and past, from Emily Dickinson and W. H. Auden to Louise Gluck and Li-Young Lee, Coming to Age reveals new truths, offers spiritual sustenance, and reminds us of what we already know but may have forgotten, illuminating the profound beauty and significance of commonplace moments that become more precious and radiant as we grow older.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780316424912 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Little, Brown and Company |
| Publication date: | 04/14/2020 |
| Pages: | 272 |
| Sales rank: | 1,048,419 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Carolyn Hopley was president and founder of Third Wave Television, a production group that focused on women's history and equality. She's a longtime activist in the women's movement and a photographer.
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Editors' Preface 5
1 "You Reading This, Be Ready"
"William Stafford: You Reading This, Be Ready 9
Linda Pastan: A Glass of Cold Water 10
W. S. Merwin: Dew Light 11
Louise Glück: Lament 12
Jeffrey Harrison: Enough 13
Ursula K. Le Guin: My Birthday Present 14
Jane Hirshfield: The Decision 15
Stanley Kunicz: The Round 16
2 "The Sound of Time"
William Stafford: Fall Wind 19
Theodore Roethke: Slow Season 20
Clive James: Season to Season 21
Elaine Feinstein: Long Life 22
William Stafford: The Way It Is 23
Eleanor Lerman: Starfish 24
Elizabeth Alexander: Alice at One Hundred and Two 26
W. H. Auden: Posthumous Letter to Gilbert White 27
Jorge Luis Borges: Ars Poetica 28
W. S. Merwin: For the Anniversary of My Death 105
Linda Pastan: The Cossacks 106
Wislawa Szymborska: A Contribution to Statistics 108
Ursula K. Le Gum: In the Borderlands 111
7 "Yes, That Was I"
Hilda Morley: I Begin to Love 115
Ted Kooser: That Was I 116
W. B. Yeats: After Long Silence 118
Stanley Kunitz: I Dreamed That I Was Old 119
Robert Frost: Carpe Diem 120
Wendell Berry: They 122
W. B. Yeats: Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad? 123
Billy Collins: Forgetfulness 124
Bill Knott: There's the Rub 125
Richard Eberhart: Youth and Age 126
Archibald MacLeish: With Age Wisdom 127
8 "A Solace of Ripe Plums"
Tony Hoagland: Quiet 131
Richard Wilbur: A Finished Man 132
Robert Frost: Provide, Provide 133
William Meredith: Country Stars 134
Kay Ryan: Why We Must Struggle 135
Tomas Tranströmer: Allegro 136
William Carlos Williams: To a Poor Old Woman 137
Billy Collins: Consolation 138
Derek Walcott: Untitled #51 139
Janet Lewis: Out of a Dark Wood 140
9 "Late Ripeness"
D. H. Lawrence: Beautiful Old Age 143
Elaine Feinstein: Getting Older 144
Grace Paley: Hand-Me-Downs 145
Ogden Nash: Old Is for Books 146
Robert Browning: Rabbi Ben Ezra (excerpt) 148
Kathian Poulton: Untitled 149
C. K. Williams: Glass 150
Anacreon: Youthful Eld 151
Czeslaw Milosz: Late Ripeness 152
Mary Ann Hoberman: Reconsideration 154
Molly Peacock: A Face, a Cup 155
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Terminus 156
Langston Hughes: Mother to Son 158
10 "Glad to the Brink of Fear"
Wendell Berry: Why 161
Ron Padgett: Words from the Front 162
W. S. Merwin: One of the Butterflies 163
Denise Levertov: Joy 164
Elizabeth Bishop: Sonnet 166
William Stafford: Any Morning 167
Gunilla Norris: Good 168
Li-Young Lee: From Blossoms 170
Marianne Moore: What Are Years? 171
Billy Collins: Today 172
Alicia Ostriker: The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog 173
11 "Toward What Undreamt Condition"
Emily Dickinson: This World is not Conclusion 177
Jalal al-Din Rumi: Wean Yourself 178
Adrienne Rich: Final Notations 179
Raymond Carver: The Window 180
Louise Glück: The Night Migrations 181
W. B. Yeats: Sailing to Byzantium 182
Richard Wilbur: A Measuring Worm 184
Louise Glück: Vespers 185
Alan Dugan: Note: The Sea Grinds Things Up 186
Albert Goldbarth: The Way 188
A. R. Amnions: The City Limits 189
12 "Now for Lunch"
Kay Ryan: Least Action 193
Derek Walcott: Love After Love 194
D. H. Lawrence: A Living 195
Wallace Stevens: The Well Dressed Man with a Beard 196
W. H. Auden: After Reading a Child's Guide to Modern Physics 197
Wislawa Szymborska: The End and the Beginning 199
E. E. Cummings: love is a place 201
Ted Kooser: The Leaky Faucet 202
Kay Ryan: Ticket 203
John Hall Wheelock: To You, Perhaps Yet Unborn 204
William Meredith: The Cheer 205
Ron Padgett: The Death Deal 206
Billy Collins: Days 208
Langston Hughes: Advice 209
Acknowledgments 211
Permissions 213
About the Poets 221
Index 251