How to Write About Getting Older Without Writing a Sad Poem

Aging is the most feared subject in poetry and the most likely to be maudlin. A judge on the three moves that turn an aging poem into a real one, the test that tells you if the poem is about the age or about you, and the one image that always works.

Aging is the most feared subject in poetry, and it is the most likely to be maudlin. Every contest pile has a stack of aging poems that are sad about getting old, and the sadness is the thing that makes the poem a sob story instead of a poem.

The aging poem that works is not about the age. It is about the person who is getting older.

The maudlin trap

The maudlin poem is the one that tells you how sad it is to be getting old. The wrinkles, the grey hair, the slowing down, the loss of the young self. It is accurate and it is flat, because the age is the subject and the subject is the one thing the reader can feel for themselves.

A poem about aging should not describe the age. It should describe what the age does to the person who is in it.

The three moves that turn an aging poem into a real one

Move one: put a person in it. The aging poem that works has a person in it, a parent, a grandparent, a self. The age is the stage; the person is the play. The poem is about the person in the age, not the age itself.

Move two: give the age a body. The age should be doing something to the body, the hands that are slower, the eyes that are weaker, the back that is bent. If the age is just sitting there, it is a backdrop. If it is doing something to the body, it is a subject.

Move three: let the age change you. The best aging poems are the ones where the speaker is different at the end than they were at the beginning, and the age is the thing that changed them. The age is the agent; the poem is the change.

The question that decides

Here is the question I ask when I am judging an aging poem: is this poem about the age, or is it about the person in the age? If the answer is the age, it is a maudlin poem. If the answer is the person, it is a poem.

The maudlin poem says 'this is how sad it is'. The real aging poem says 'this is what the age did to me'. The difference is the difference between a complaint and a life.

A worked example

Bad: 'I am getting old and my hands are wrinkled and my hair is grey and I am sad about it.' The age is the subject; the speaker is absent.

Better: 'I have learned to hold a pen differently now, the way my father did, and I have become the person he was when I was young.' The age is the agent; the speaker is the person who is changed by it. The poem is about the person who has been changed by the age, not the age itself.

Where it goes wrong

The trap is the poem that is a complaint about the age. The complaint is not a poem; it is a grievance. The poem is the thing that the age did to the person who was in it, and the doing is the work.

If you want to see an aging poem that is about the person, the prompts library has a set on time and the self, and the contest window is open when the draft is ready. The age is the stage. The person is the play.

Keep reading

For the craft side, the time collection covers the deeper method. The volta module is the page to read next, and the metaphor module is where the work goes when it is done.

By Writory Editorial, for Writory.

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