The Poetry of Aging

“So here it is at last, the distinguished thing”

So Henry James described his intimation of death. His brother, William, was grittier, but no less poetic in calling it the “worm at the core” that frightens and fascinates us.  

Thoughts of aging and death have inspired some of our most beautiful poetry: “Upon those boughs which shake against the cold/Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang,” wrote William Shakespeare.

This roundtable will bring together poets, psychoanalysts, critics and a translator to consider questions that seem more compelling than ever in our aging society: What is the relationship between dementia and language? How does aging change the experience of reading and writing poetry? How do we distinguish between lived experience and the lyrical? Can poetry help us as we age?