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Coming to Age: Growing Older with Poetry
This exquisitely giftable anthology of poems about age and aging reveals the wisdom of trailblazing writers who found power and growth later in life.
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.
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.
- GenresPoetry
272 pages, Hardcover
Published April 14, 2020
14 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
About the author
Mary Ann Hoberman
77 books95 followersMary Ann Hoberman was an American author of over 30 children's books.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
March 16, 2020
Thanks for netgalley and respective publishers for sending me a copy.
This is the most recommended book of poetry and poetry lovers.
Each and every poem was fantastic.
It's a collection of world's wonderful poetry from various renown poets and poetess.
Just like Lament !!! Keats !!! R.L. Stevenson !!! Ralph Waldo Emerson!!! Elaine Feinstein !!!
My favorite poetess-- Emily Dickinson.
Few exceptional lines ::---
***
Suddenly, after you die, those friends
who never agreed about anything
agree about your character.
They’re like a houseful of singers rehearsing
the same score:
you were just, you were kind, you lived a fortunate life.
**
“No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”
Margaret Randall
Wallace Stevens
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love-letters from the bookshelf,
This is the most recommended book of poetry and poetry lovers.
Each and every poem was fantastic.
It's a collection of world's wonderful poetry from various renown poets and poetess.
Just like Lament !!! Keats !!! R.L. Stevenson !!! Ralph Waldo Emerson!!! Elaine Feinstein !!!
My favorite poetess-- Emily Dickinson.
Few exceptional lines ::---
***
Suddenly, after you die, those friends
who never agreed about anything
agree about your character.
They’re like a houseful of singers rehearsing
the same score:
you were just, you were kind, you lived a fortunate life.
**
“No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.”
Margaret Randall
Wallace Stevens
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love-letters from the bookshelf,
January 24, 2020
This year, I promised myself that I would read more poetry. This is my second book of poetry that I've read this year and is probably my favorite. I think I enjoyed this collection so much because it was from such a wide variety of poets and it really gave me a chance to be exposed to a bunch of different styles and themes. Although this book is focused on aging and getting older, I think that many people of all different ages will get a lot out of this collection. Anyone who has dealt with aging (old or young) will find poems in this collection that they can relate to. I really enjoyed the poems that encouraged the reader to experience and enjoy life no matter how far along in life you are.
A few of my favorites from the collection:
Season to Season by Clive James
Living in the Body by Joyce Sutphen
In the Borderlands by Ursula K. Le Guin
Forgetfulness by Billy Collins
Wean Yourself by Mathnawi, III 49-6
The End and the Beginning by Wislawa Szymborska (translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)
Advice by Langston Hughes
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
A few of my favorites from the collection:
Season to Season by Clive James
Living in the Body by Joyce Sutphen
In the Borderlands by Ursula K. Le Guin
Forgetfulness by Billy Collins
Wean Yourself by Mathnawi, III 49-6
The End and the Beginning by Wislawa Szymborska (translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)
Advice by Langston Hughes
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
April 16, 2023
I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley.
I can tell that these are well-written poems. However, it's not the type of poetry I usually read. It just didn't appeal to me. Rating: 3/5 stars
I can tell that these are well-written poems. However, it's not the type of poetry I usually read. It just didn't appeal to me. Rating: 3/5 stars
May 15, 2020
An extensive collection of poetry relating to the joys, hardships, challenges, and perspectives on aging. This isn't a set of feel good poems, but it does focus a good amount on poetry as a way to recontextualize and see the positives in aging. Some old favorites (FIGHT FIGHT AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT) are mixed with a smattering of lesser known, contemporary, and even translated poets (and I wish their were more of those).
I think the poem that will stick with me longest is Vespers, by Louise Glück:
In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.
**Thanks to the editors, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
I think the poem that will stick with me longest is Vespers, by Louise Glück:
In your extended absence, you permit me
use of earth, anticipating
some return on investment. I must report
failure in my assignment, principally
regarding the tomato plants.
I think I should not be encouraged to grow
tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold
the heavy rains, the cold nights that come
so often here, while other regions get
twelve weeks of summer. All this
belongs to you: on the other hand,
I planted the seeds, I watched the first shoots
like wings tearing the soil, and it was my heart
broken by the blight, the black spot so quickly
multiplying in the rows. I doubt
you have a heart, in our understanding of
that term. You who do not discriminate
between the dead and the living, who are, in consequence,
immune to foreshadowing, you may not know
how much terror we bear, the spotted leaf,
the red leaves of the maple falling
even in August, in early darkness: I am responsible
for these vines.
**Thanks to the editors, publisher, and NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
February 27, 2020
In her poem Reconsideration, Mary Ann Hoberman reminds us, "...only lucky folk grow old."
When I was a young woman older people would tell me, "Don't ever grow old, Nancy." I would laugh and reply, "It's better than the alternative."
Now I am an older person, I still think old age better than the alternative. Still, every year brings a new reminder of what I am loosing. For the first time I feel a chill at the idea of nothingness. How can I not be? How can the world be if I am not?
This mystery begins to niggle at me when I wake at night.
Coming to Age is a collection of poetry that speaks to the universal human experience of aging and the concerns and joys that accompany growing older. The poems were chosen for their universality and accessibility.
Themes include being rooted in this time and place; the passage of time; the solace of nature; the physical body's frailty; the loss of loved ones; the view from old age; the memories that made us who we are; the mystery of life; and that which gives solace and joy and sustains us.
Many of the poems moved me, eliciting a cold chill of recognition or a warm sun of memory.
"But memories, where can you take them to? Take one last look at them. They end with you," wrote Clive James in Star System. And I wonder about all the knowledge I hold that will be lost, the swing of my mother's blonde ponytail ascending the stairs when I was three, the sound of my son's baby voice. And I regret all the untold tales held secret in my mother's breast, the stories lost with death.
The breadth of the poems can be shown in these examples, Wendell Berry appreciating the peace nature brings and Kurt Vonnegut how we destroy the Earth.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
Requiem
The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it,
"Forgive them, Father,
they know not what they do."
The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.
Kurt Vonnegut
It takes a kind of courage to read these poems, to open yourself to grapple with life and death. But you will find catharsis and a recognition that you are not alone, and you will perhaps even find joy.
There is "So much to do still, all of it praise," Derek Walcott wrote in Untitled #51.,"...how pure a thing is joy."
"What love, what longing, my reader, speaks to you from this page!" proclaims John Hall Wheelock in To You, Perhaps Yet Unborn, in which he imagines readers who read his words posthumously.
These poems are the gifts of poets whose words reach out over years or centuries to alter our perceptions and comfort us.
I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
When I was a young woman older people would tell me, "Don't ever grow old, Nancy." I would laugh and reply, "It's better than the alternative."
Now I am an older person, I still think old age better than the alternative. Still, every year brings a new reminder of what I am loosing. For the first time I feel a chill at the idea of nothingness. How can I not be? How can the world be if I am not?
This mystery begins to niggle at me when I wake at night.
Coming to Age is a collection of poetry that speaks to the universal human experience of aging and the concerns and joys that accompany growing older. The poems were chosen for their universality and accessibility.
Themes include being rooted in this time and place; the passage of time; the solace of nature; the physical body's frailty; the loss of loved ones; the view from old age; the memories that made us who we are; the mystery of life; and that which gives solace and joy and sustains us.
Many of the poems moved me, eliciting a cold chill of recognition or a warm sun of memory.
"But memories, where can you take them to? Take one last look at them. They end with you," wrote Clive James in Star System. And I wonder about all the knowledge I hold that will be lost, the swing of my mother's blonde ponytail ascending the stairs when I was three, the sound of my son's baby voice. And I regret all the untold tales held secret in my mother's breast, the stories lost with death.
The breadth of the poems can be shown in these examples, Wendell Berry appreciating the peace nature brings and Kurt Vonnegut how we destroy the Earth.
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
Requiem
The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it,
"Forgive them, Father,
they know not what they do."
The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.
Kurt Vonnegut
It takes a kind of courage to read these poems, to open yourself to grapple with life and death. But you will find catharsis and a recognition that you are not alone, and you will perhaps even find joy.
There is "So much to do still, all of it praise," Derek Walcott wrote in Untitled #51.,"...how pure a thing is joy."
"What love, what longing, my reader, speaks to you from this page!" proclaims John Hall Wheelock in To You, Perhaps Yet Unborn, in which he imagines readers who read his words posthumously.
These poems are the gifts of poets whose words reach out over years or centuries to alter our perceptions and comfort us.
I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
March 24, 2020
Coming to Age: Growing Older with Poetry is a nice anthology of poems about growing older from a wide selection of poets who have "been there".
Poetry is a genre that, for me, brings the commonality of the human experience to life. I can lose myself in the well-turned phrases, the imagery, the relatability.
As is the case with all literature, some of these poems resonated with me, some did not, but enough did to make this a worthwhile read. 3.5 stars from me.
My thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown & Company for allowing me to read an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions stated here are my own.
Poetry is a genre that, for me, brings the commonality of the human experience to life. I can lose myself in the well-turned phrases, the imagery, the relatability.
As is the case with all literature, some of these poems resonated with me, some did not, but enough did to make this a worthwhile read. 3.5 stars from me.
My thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown & Company for allowing me to read an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions stated here are my own.
April 7, 2020
I received a review copy of this book via NetGalley.
A lovely anthology of poems from all sorts of poets and places, brought together by the common theme of growth, aging and living and highlighted by some thoughtful forewords and commentary threaded through the book.
A lovely anthology of poems from all sorts of poets and places, brought together by the common theme of growth, aging and living and highlighted by some thoughtful forewords and commentary threaded through the book.
March 6, 2020
A good read, full of poems by known and new to me authors.
It made me think and I loved what I read.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
It made me think and I loved what I read.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine
May 22, 2020
An uplifting, inspiring, stunning, wise, NECESSARY book!! Thank you, Mary Ann Hoberman and Carolyn Hopley, for giving us all something so meaningful, beautiful, and worthwhile to dig into for as long as we are alive.
May 28, 2024
I often find poetry anthologies frustrating. This was a refreshing change. A lovely and challenging assortment of poems considering aging and living with the end of life in mind. There are some wonderful finds here and I will return to this book often.
November 26, 2020
Great fun. Some editorial comments are pedantic or trite, but they never overpower the poems themselves. A pure pleasure.
December 23, 2020
This may be the best poetry anthology I've ever read. I'm going to have to see what else these editors have created.
August 25, 2021
Love this selection of poetry.
March 27, 2024
Presumiblemente serían poemas sobre la vejez, pero en realidad la mayoría no lo son. Me parece una oportunidad perdida, pero no es en absoluto una mala antología. Es muy bella, de hecho, aunque un tanto engañosa.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews