The Emma Press Anthology of Age: Poems About Ageing

by Sarah Hesketh

We’re all ageing, all of the time. As a society we’re getting even older, but we seldom seem to stop and think about the huge mental and physical changes that happen to us as we get old, or what it’s like to live as an old person. The Emma Press Anthology of Age is a collection of poems which challenge, celebrate and give age a voice, finding humour amidst the heartbreak and comfort within the pain.

80 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2015

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little too one-note with the focus on aged parents’ infirmity and dementia. I was expecting more of a range of responses to ageing. The best poems were from writers whose work I already knew (Alison Brackenbury and Isobel Dixon), with the exception of Anja Konig’s “Nel Mezzo” and Aileen Ballantyne’s “In the Garden,” which imagines helping a loved one accomplish a gentle assisted death in the vein of the one Terry Pratchett used to envision. I’ve found other Emma Press anthologies more consistent.