Rebecca Seiferle wrote:
> Happy birthday, Alison, and just ignore these few list
> grumblers about the perils of any age, just think
> you've made it out of the category of "younger poets", all the
> while remaining younger than most of the rest of us!
I remember being a bit appalled when I realized that I'd never be
eligible for the Yale Series of Younger Poets because the cutoff age is
40, and I didn't start writing with attentiveness until I was 46.
Wasn't Dugan a YYP? Perhaps there should be an Independent and Assisted
Living Communities Series for First-Time Older Poets. Payment would be
in copies plus a lifetime supply of Depends, antacids and an annual
visit to the medical specialist you need the most.
More seriously (as though humor around aging was not a serious enough
subject)...when I hit 30 I really didn't notice even though I saw any
number of people become totally depressed because they hadn't yet
directed Citizen Kane, written Donne's Songs and Sonets, or made a
trainload of money. These were all younger faculty members where I was
in graduate school. I myself was chasing a doctorate, so I was living
in a state of prolonged institutionalized adolescence that in most cases
left no time for ruminations over the things I hadn't done by 30. My
wife was the one with the job; I just had to part-time teach a
collection of randy college students some of whom I perceived correctly
as potentially dangerous to my peace of mind as well as my marriage--yet
the whole atmosphere of adulation, pheremones, and danger from incipient
lust was part of remaining an adolescent even at 30 and 31. Then,
crash. Three months after I took my first job at the age of 32, "degree
in hand," I wound up in the hospital with an acute anxiety attack that
looked like a coronary. The fun was over. When our first child was
born I was 34. The second was born when I was 37. Each date along the
way represented a milestone that had nothing to do with decades but a
lot to do with jolts to my system that demanded more maturity than I
often had.
For all that, my 40th birthday was fun. My wife sprang a surprise party
and I was actually surprised.
My 50th was horrible. I was in a caving marriage, doing work I was
finally admitting I despised without yet being able to come to terms
with the fact I was stuck with it. I was writing like mad--how much of
it was good I have no idea. I really should go back and see what I
produced in 1994. Some of it spoke to the morally compromised
situations into which I put myself. It's erotic love poetry. I haven't
had the nerve to look at it in 9 years.
Next year is the 60th. Sometimes, in my memory, I am still the 21 year
old college jerk in the Bronx chasing girls and smoking dope. Sometimes
I behave in a fully responsible fashion. Sometimes I really do live
out the Steve Hamilton thing about being young once but immature
forever. Part of me has no interest in whatever is meant by "growing
up." I actually like being a bit goofy. I find that in order to write
anymore I have to tell the adult in me to take a walk for awhile--that
sort of play belongs to the guy who steals time at work to write this.
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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