Hi Ken,
Rest homes for poets? haha, just think what fits they would give
the staff!
And, yes, Alan Dugan won the Yale Younger Poets award. Aren't
there several awards now too for poets past a certain age?
The Capricorn award whose first book was published after
40 from the Writers Series at the YMCA in NYC, I think,
the Winner award from the PSA, Grandma Winifred award,
though the names of these might give one pause.
Thanks for your long and generous reply, so full of the
complexities of the reality and life that it seems to overflow
the chronology of being a fixed age!
Best,
Rebecca
Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Wolman <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sep 19, 2003 11:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: It's my birthday!
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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