What Can Be Said of Old Age?

What Does a Poet say about it?

British poet, Jenny Joseph, published thirteen poetry books and won several awards. Three of her books were written after the age of 69.

A 1996 BBC survey identified this poem as the UK’s most popular post-war poem, beating Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night.”

Despite her large and rich body of work, this one poem defined her as a poet. It has inspired thousands of women not to “act their age”, but to be who they want to be, even to wearing purple, although Jenny Joseph hates the color herself.

The poem opened a door for me when I first read it.  Young people like to think of us senior citizens as contented sheep who blindly follow a boring script for life and growing even older.

It just isn’t true, at least among the people I know who are my age.  Some are even flashier than what Jenny Joseph wrote about in her poem …

When I Am Old
(a.k.a. “Warning”)
by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me,
and I shall spend my pension
on brandy and summer gloves
and satin sandals,
and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired,
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,
and run my stick along the public railings,
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people's gardens,
and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go,
or only bread and pickles for a week,
and hoard pens and pencils and beer mats
and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry,
and pay our rent and not swear in the street,
and set a good example for the children.
We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now
so people who know me
are not too shocked and surprised,
when suddenly I am old
and start to wear purple!

-*-

I love her poem. If I could add one more thing to it, it would be for society to allow me to do everything in her poem, just barefoot.

Have a great day!

Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
Quora Top Writer 2018.
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