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Poetry on Aging
(A Tri-C Common Reading Program Assignment)
Total Points Possible: _______ Due: ________
Required Reading:
The Postmortal
The following eight (8) poems:
“Do Not Go Gentle” (Dylan Thomas) “Courage” (Anne Sexton)
“You Can’t Have It All” (Barbara Ras) “Old Woman” (Elizabeth Jennings)
“Mother’s Closet” (Maxine Scates) “Letter to Dad” (Lou Suarez)
“Death Be Not Proud” (John Donne) “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” (Emily Dickenson)
The Assignment:
Step 1:
Experience the eight poems listed above.
You can access written copies of the poems below, at the end of this document. Embedded links allow you to access audio recordings of some of the poems.
Although you will ultimately reflect upon just two of the poems, take the time to enjoy each of them. Listening to poetry is a pleasurable experience. Allow yourself this luxury. Experiencing all the poems will also help you determine which pair of poems most appeals to you.
Step 2:
Select just ONE of the writing assignment options below and respond to the prompt in a thoughtful reflection. Remember: Each option asks you to reflect upon two of the eight poems.
Step 3:
Post your reflection to our class Blackboard site, in the appropriate Discussion Board forum.
Step 4:
Respond to any three (3) of your classmates’ original posts.
Please see the class guidelines and rubric for Discussion Board posts and response posts.
Writing Assignment Options
(Select one.)
Option 1: Is there a good way to approach death?
Working with “Do Not Go Gentle” and “Courage,” consider Dylan Thomas’ and Anne Sexton’s sentiments toward death. Consider also the perspective on death which John Farrell’s father seems to hold in Magary’s novel. What similarities and/or differences do you find between these three perspectives? Which perspective comes closest to your own?
Respond in a thoughtful 300 – 350 word post. Be sure to reference both poems and a quote from Farrell’s father at some point in your reflection.
Option 2: Aging Gracefully?
Barbara Ras (“You Can’t Have it All”) and Elizabeth Jennings (“Old Woman”) use their poems to capture the experience of aging. Both poems explore the inevitability of death and our attempts to walk through the chapter of old age gracefully, with a spirit of acceptance.
Select one character from The Postmortal. Do your own feelings toward death resonate more closely with the sentiments expressed by that character, Ras’ poem or Jennings’ poem? Explain why.
Respond in a thoughtful 300 – 350 word post. Be sure to reference both poems and a quote from The Postmortal character at some point in your reflection.
Option 3: Life Cycles
“Mother’s Closet” (Maxine Scates) and “Letter to Dad” (Lou Suarez) both address death from the perspective of an adult child left behind – the son or daughter of a deceased or dying parent. Both poems also capture the human spirit’s ache for continuance.
Write a reflective paragraph in which you consider the following:
In your opinion, is the natural life cycle (from childhood to young adulthood to middle age to old age) a natural cycle, one that ultimately benefits the human race?
Should older people find a certain degree of contentment in handing off the baton to the next generation?
Should the generation left behind find contentment in that cycle as well?
Respond in a thoughtful 300 – 350 word post. Be sure to reference both poems at some point in your reflection.
Do Not Go Gentle (Dylan Thomas)
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
From Collected Poems, 1934-1952 (J.M. Dent, 1977)
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(Click on the above link for audio recording of Anthony Hopkins reading “Do Not Go Gentle.”)
Courage (Anne Sexton)
It is in the small things we see it. The child’s first step, as awesome as an earthquake. The first time you rode a bike, wallowing up the sidewalk. The first spanking when your heart went on a journey all alone.
When they called you crybaby or poor or fatty or crazy and made you into an alien, you drank their acid and concealed it.
Later, if you faced the death of bombs and bullets you did not do it with a banner, you did it with only a hat to cover your heart. You did not fondle the weakness inside you though it was there. Your courage was a small coal that you kept swallowing. If your buddy saved you and died himself in so doing, then his courage was not courage, it was love; love as simple as shaving soap.
Later, if you have endured a great despair, then you did it alone, getting a transfusion from the fire, picking the scabs off your heart, then wringing it out like a sock. Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow, you gave it a back rub and then you covered it with a blanket and after it had slept a while it woke to the wings of the roses and was transformed.
Later, when you face old age and its natural conclusion your courage will still be shown in the little ways, each spring will be a sword you’ll sharpen, those you love will live in a fever of love, and you’ll bargain with the calendar and at the last moment when death opens the back door you’ll put on your carpet slippers and stride out.
From The Awful Rowing Toward God (Houghton Mifflin, 1977)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWIPQebR8ZE (Click on the above link for audio recording of “Courage.”)
From Bite Every Sorrow (Louisiana State University Press, 1998)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uQofaW0Ofk (Click on the above link for audio recording of “You Can’t Have it All.”)
Mother’s Closet (Maxine Scates)
There is everything she ever closed a door on, the broom closet of childhood where no one could ever find a broom. Here, layer upon layer, nothing breathes: photo albums curl at the edges, books she brought home from the library where she worked, handled by thousands of other hands before their final exile where they’ve waited, paper and more paper taking in the ocean air, about to sprout.
Mother’s sitting on the bed with her tattered list of dispersals – who gets what among the treasures she hopes I’ll find, but I know I’m seeing what she doesn’t want me to see, the daughter cleaning doing what the son would never do. After an hour of excavation the console TV emerges from beneath forgotten sweaters and balled up nylons saved for stuffing puppets, a long ago church project – the TV arrived in 1966 the same day I crushed the fender of the car, upsetting the careful plans she’d made for payment.
She wants to leave so much behind. Hours later I’ve found nothing I want but the purple mache mask I made in the fourth grade. I like its yellow eyes. She looks at each magazine I remove, saving every word about my brother, the coach. He’s sixty and a long dead mouse has eaten the laces of his baby shoes. I want order. I say I’m old myself, I’ve started throwing things away. I’m lying. I’ve kept everything she’s ever given me.
From Black Loam (Cherry Grove Collections, 2005)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/ (Click on the above link for audio recording of “Mother’s Closet.”)
Old Woman (Elizabeth Jennings)
So much she caused she cannot now account for As she stands watching day return, the cool Walls of the house moving towards the sun. She puts some flowers in a vase and thinks “There is not much I can arrange In here now, but flowers are suppliant
As children never were. And love is now A flicker of memory, my body is My own entirely. When I lie at night I gather nothing now into my arms, No child or man, and where I live Is what remains when men and children go.”
Yet she owns more than residue of lives That she has marked and altered. See how she Warns time from too much touching her possessions By keeping flowers fed, by polishing Her fine old silver. Gratefully She sees her own glance printed on grandchildren.
Drawing the curtains back and opening windows Every morning now, she feels her years Grow less and less. Time puts no burden on Her now she does not need to measure it. It is acceptance she arranges And her own life she places in the vase.
From Collected Poems. (Macmillan, 1967)
Letter to Dad (Lou Suarez)
Your golf clubs are rusting beside your bowling ball, which is covered by dust, and miscellaneous bags and corrugated boxes. You should write back, let this death business go, tell us what you think about the brakes on Mom’s ’83 Tempo, the mutual fund you bought into – market whore, the broker now calls it – the twenty-year roof on the sixty-year-old
Death Be Not Proud (John Donne)
Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but they pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
From Holy Sonnets , 1633
Because I Could Not Stop For Death (Emily Dickenson, 1863)
Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no hast And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess – in the Ring – We passed the Fields of Grazing Grain – We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed Us – The Dews drew quivering and chill – For only Gossamer, my Gown – My Tippet – only Tulle –
We passed before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground – The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then –‘tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity.
From The Poems of Emily Dickenson (The BelKnap Press of Harvard University, 1998) First published posthumously in 1890.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/ (Click on the above link for audio recording of “Because I Could Not Stop For Death.”)
