Poets' Wisdom about Ourselves as We Grow Older

      Last week I finished collecting into a book 75 poems about aging. I don't remember who gave me this idea, and unfortunately, I didn't write down his or her name, but it was a good item for the 75x75 project because I got to read lots of poetry. 

       Some poems to put in the book were no-brainers: T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (one of my favorite poems); Yeats's poems about old age (the beginning of one is quoted on my stairs: "When have I last looked on/The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies/Of the dark leopards of the moon?"); Robert Frost's "Death of the Hired Man," which I memorized years ago; Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."

      Then I started searching. I found various lists on various websites and chose from them. Reading one poet led me to memories of another. In the end I collected about 85 poems, from poets I have known for decades, from contemporary poets I have read before, from names I had never heard of. Choosing the 75 I liked best was no easy task, though I do have my favorites.

      What I learned from this exercise is that many poets who live into old age write about old age, – Yeats, Kunitz, Atwood, Donne. Others write about what they think old age will look like or what it looks like in another person: Coleridge ("Youth and Age"), Jeffers ("Fawn's Foster-Mother"), Tennyson ("Ulysses"). Some welcome old age with gentleness (Mary Oliver; Ursula LeGuin); others rage against it (Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night") or view it with irony (A. R. Ammons, "In View of the Fact"). The variety makes for a good read. 

      The book about people who have accomplished great things after the age of 75 was spiral bound. For variety, I made this one a collection in a three-ring binder. Instead of typing the poems all in the same font, I copied them from books, some from one anthology, some for another, some from a poet's book of poems, some cut out and glued on. The different pages add to the interest.

      Below I've  copied one of my favorites (omitting "Prufrock" because it's too long). I've chosen "A History of High Heels" by Tony Hoagland, who died a week or so ago, so this is kind of a tribute to him. Below that is a list of all the poems, in the hopes that you will look them up and savor these words of wisdom about ourselves as we grow older. (An asterisk just means it's a poem I particularly like.)

      A History of High Heels

by Tony Hoagland

It's like God leaned down long ago and said,

to a woman who was just standing around,

"How would you like a pair of shoes

that shoves the backs of your feet up about four inches

so you balance always on your tiptoes

and your spine roller-coasters forward, then back,

so that even when you are spin-doctoring a corporate merger

or returning from your father's funeral in Florida,

your rump sticks out in a fertility announcement

and your chest is pushed out a little bit in front of you

the way that majorettes precede a marching band?"

No, I shouldn't have said that – I'm sorry.

It's just my curdled bitterness talking; it's just

            my disappointment flaring up

in a toxic blaze of misdirected scorn –

because today is one of those days when I am starting to suspect

that sex was just a wild-goose chase

in which I honk-honk-honked away

      three-quarters of my sweet, unconscious life.

Now my hair is gray, and I'm in the Philadelphia airport,

where women are still walking past me endlessly

with that clickety-clack, clickety-clack,

flipping their hair and licking their teeth,

while underneath my own shoes

I suddenly can feel the emptiness of space;

and over my head, I see light falling from the sky

that all these years

I might have been leaning back

to gaze at and long for and praise.

75 Poems about Aging

1. Anonymous, Beowulf (lines 1722b-1768)

2. Adcock, Fleur, "Mrs. Baldwin"

3. Ammons, A. R., "In View of the Fact"

4. Angelous, Maya, "On Aging"

5. Arnold, Matthew, "Growing Old"

6. Atwood, Margaret, "Daguerreotype Taken in Old Age"

7. Cabral, Olga, "Lillian's Chair"

8. Carroll, Lewis, "You Are Old, Father William"

9. Southey, Robert, "The Old Man's Comforts, and How He Gained Them" (a take-off on Carroll's poem)

10. Cavafy, Constantine, "The God Forsakes Anthony"

*11. Chase, Linda, "Old Flame"

12. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, "Youth and Age"

13-14. Collins, Billy, two poems ("Forgetfulness" and "The Golden Years")

15. Creeley, Robert, "Age"

16-19. Four sonnets by John Donne ("Death Be Not Proud," "As Due by Many Titles," "Thou Hast Made Me," "This Is My Play's Last Scene")

*20-21. T. S. Eliot, two poems ("Prufrock" and "Gerontion")

22. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, "Terminus"

23. Fainlight, Ruth, "Aging"

24. Feinstein, Elaine, "Long Life"

25-39. Robert Frost, five poems ("Stopping by Woods," "Nothing Gold Can Stay," "An Old Man's Winter Night," "Provide, Provide," "Death of the Hired Man")

30. Hall, Donald, "Affirmation"

*31. Hoagland, Tony, "A History of High Heels"

*32. Hopkins, Gerard Manley, "Spring and Fall"

33. Hughes, Ted, "Old Age Gets Up"

34-35. Jeffers, Robinson, two poems ("Vulture" and "Fawn's Foster-Mother")

36. Joseph, Jenny, "Warning"

37. Justice, Donald, "Men at Forty"

*38. Kunitz, Stanley, "Touch Me"

39. Larkin, Philip, "Aubade"

40-41. LeGuin, Ursula, two poems ("My birthday Present," "The Arts of Old Age")

42. Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, "Nature"

43. Lu Yu, "Written in a Carefree Mood"

44. Silverstein, Shel, "The Little Boy and the Old Man"

*45. Marvell, Andrew, "To His Coy Mistress"

46. McClatchy, J. D. "Wolf's Trees"

*47-48. McGough, Robert, two contradictory poems ("Let Mew Die a Youngman's Death" and "Not for Men a Youngman's Death")

49. Milosz, Czslaw, "Late Ripeness"

50-52. Oliver, Mary, three poems ("When Death Comes," "The Gift," "I Worried")

53. Parini, Jay, "His Morning Meditations" 

54. Randolph, Thomas, "Upon His Portrait"

55. Kaufman, Wallace, "Untitled" (his take on Randolph's poem)

56. Chief Seattle (words)

57-60. Shakespeare, William, four sonnets (#2, 60, 66, and 73)

61. Duffy, Maureen, "That time of year thou mayst in me behold"

62. Sitwell, Dame Edith, "The Poet Laments the Coming of Old Age"

63. Swir, Anne, "She Is Sixty"

64. Tagore, Rabindranath,  "Closed Path"

65-66. Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, two poems ("Ulysses," "Crossing the Bar")

*67. Thomas, Dylan, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"

68. Woo, David, "Eden"

*69. Wright, David, "Lines of Retirement after Reading Lear"

*70-75. W. B. Yeats, six poems ("Sailing to Byzantium," "The Circus Animals' Desertion," "The Wild Old Wicked Man," "When You Are Old," "The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner," and "Lines Written in Dejection")