https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ebb-and-flow/201610/the-power-writing-poetry-in-old-age
Photos by Mike Flemming 2017 copyright
Quote:
After some initial resistance and discomfort, they now write relatively freely and openly; they are glad to tell their stories through poems. When I ask them to speak directly to the stars—or the moon or the sky— as Keats does in his poem, ‘Bright Star’, they are excited and adventurous. They have now written poems about music, childhood, roses, seasons, war. They have constructed persona poems and comparison poems and learned to use metaphors and similes. They take pride in both their own creations and those of their fellow poets. They love listening to what well-known poets have written.
And they have connected to the naturally poetic in their deepest selves, writing with increasing confidence about their wide range of personal experiences and emotions, from the very happy to the very sad.
In a recent poem that the workshop composed together, a collaborative poem about the end of WWll, Marie wrote:
‘There was a beautiful magnolia tree on our cobblestone street in the Bronx/ Before the war, my husband and I would spend hours and hours sitting under its magnificent blossoms/ Hours, hours/ So many of the boys from our neighborhood never made it home again/ Under the tree is a plaque for them/ Situated on a mound of grass/ Stars carved next to each of the dead soldiers’ names/ So many stars, too many stars’.
“This workshop is the best thing that has ever happened to me!” Marie announced at our last meeting.
Marie and my special, old age poets are viewing their days with fresh eyes. They seem to be finding beauty and meaning everywhere—in their memories of the past and in today’s world around them— through the writing of poetry.
How my heart sings 