Poetry on Aging
#NaPoWriMo Poetry Prompts
Aging is the sort of inevitable, non-negotiable topic that fascinates poets. Birth, school, work, death, in the immortal lyrics of The Godfathers.
Some of us fight aging. Some of us embrace it. Whichever approach is yours, though, aging beats its only known alternative. In the immortal words of someone.
People in my family die young. Maybe that’s why I’ve always wanted to be old. Or maybe it’s because I’d hoped to be old and wise, to stop making the same foolish mistakes over and over again. This year, I’ll be 64, and the bad news is I’m still making foolish mistakes. The good news is I have a better understanding of why I make them.
Another positive of aging is that it’s made me lazier, meaning that I now have no energy at all to boss other people around about how to spend their days. This gives me more time to write.
Here’s the prompt: Write a list of what you no longer say or do now that you are older than you were last week, or last year, or ten years ago, or twenty years ago. Include as many sensory details or images as possible. For example, one thing I no longer say is “If I were you, I would do _____.” I’ve learned that no one wants that kind of advice. And I’m not you, am I?
Once you have your list, you can play around with it, or even…
