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Lasting: Poems on Aging
Lasting is an anthology of poems about aging that, together, tell a playful and profound story. From portraits of aged people to experiences of getting old to the finality of aging and death, the book is a deep and often funny journey. The anthology includes 158 poems by Kim Addonizio, Robert Bly, Billy Collins, Philip Dacey, Toi Derricotte, Rita Dove, Stephen Dunn, Donald Finkel, Tess Gallagher, Dana Gioia, Donald Hall, X.J. Kennedy, Maxine Kumin, Jane Hirshfield, Dorianne Laux, Li-Young Lee, Philip Levine, W.S. Merwin, Marge Piercy, Pattiann Rogers, W.D. Snodgrass, Gary Soto, Chase Twichell, C.K. Williams, Charles Wright, and many more. Taken together, the poems become a conversation with questions and answers, with the exchange and play of fine talk. Lasting is, finally, a collective coming to terms with mortality
293 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 2005
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 27, 2013
This is a wonderful collection, but I can only read a bit at a time. Who wants to contemplate aging more than that?
Here's a taste:
A Postmortem Guide
For my eulogist, in advance
Do not praise me for my exceptional serenity.
Can't you see I've turned away
from the large excitements,
and have accepted all the troubles?
Go down to the old cemetery; you'll see
there's nothing definitive to be said.
The dead once were all kinds���
boundary breakers and scalawags,
martyrs of the flesh, and so many
dumb bunnies of duty, unbearably nice.
I've been a little of each.
And, please, resist the temptation
of speaking about virtue.
The seldom-tempted are too fond
of that word, the small-
spirited, the unburdened.
Know that I've admired in others
only the fraught straining
to be good.
Adam's my man and Eve's not to blame.
He bit in; it made no sense to stop.
Still, for accuracy's sake you might say
I often stopped,
that I rarely went as far as I dreamed.
And since you know my hardships,
understand they're mere bump and setback
against history's horror.
Remind those seated, perhaps weeping,
how obscene it is
for some of us to complain.
Tell them I had second chances.
I knew joy.
I was burned by books early
and kept sidling up to the flame.
Tell them that at the end I had no need
for God, who'd become just a story
I once loved, one of many
with concealments and late-night rescues,
high sentence and pomp. The truth is
I learned to live without hope
as well as I could, almost happily,
in the despoiled and radiant snow.
You who are one of them, say that I loved
my companions most of all.
In all sincerity, say they provided
a better way to be alone.
-- Stephen Dunn
Here's a taste:
A Postmortem Guide
For my eulogist, in advance
Do not praise me for my exceptional serenity.
Can't you see I've turned away
from the large excitements,
and have accepted all the troubles?
Go down to the old cemetery; you'll see
there's nothing definitive to be said.
The dead once were all kinds���
boundary breakers and scalawags,
martyrs of the flesh, and so many
dumb bunnies of duty, unbearably nice.
I've been a little of each.
And, please, resist the temptation
of speaking about virtue.
The seldom-tempted are too fond
of that word, the small-
spirited, the unburdened.
Know that I've admired in others
only the fraught straining
to be good.
Adam's my man and Eve's not to blame.
He bit in; it made no sense to stop.
Still, for accuracy's sake you might say
I often stopped,
that I rarely went as far as I dreamed.
And since you know my hardships,
understand they're mere bump and setback
against history's horror.
Remind those seated, perhaps weeping,
how obscene it is
for some of us to complain.
Tell them I had second chances.
I knew joy.
I was burned by books early
and kept sidling up to the flame.
Tell them that at the end I had no need
for God, who'd become just a story
I once loved, one of many
with concealments and late-night rescues,
high sentence and pomp. The truth is
I learned to live without hope
as well as I could, almost happily,
in the despoiled and radiant snow.
You who are one of them, say that I loved
my companions most of all.
In all sincerity, say they provided
a better way to be alone.
-- Stephen Dunn
Displaying 1 of 1 review