Body Parts: A Collection of Poems About Aging
by
Janet Cameron Hoult
Order:
USA
Can
Outskirts, 2010 (2010)
Softcover, e-Book
Read an Excerpt
Reviewed by Hilary Williamson
J
anet Cameron Hoult's
Body Parts
is an eclectic '
Collection of Poems About Aging
', whose topics range from different kinds of losses (memory, hair, hearing, glasses) to pains, pills and polyps, and generally what it's like to be
elderly
. Hoult's verses address the entire territory of the aging body - and mind - with wry humor.
T
his little book of rhymes opens with
Anymore
:
'I used to move and dance with ease / Now all I seem to do is wheeze'.
I chuckled over
The Pills
: '
All the never ending pills. / Ten at breakfast, two at lunch, / At dinnertime another bunch.
' And who won't relate to
Gravity
? '
Gravity has become our foe / Especially as old we grow. / Body parts that once were firm / Now are sagging epiderm.
'
I
really liked
Elderly?
: '
Why do the young think that we who are gray / Have nothing to add, have little to say.
' And I've often mused that
Time Accelerates with Age
- Hoult says it well in '
For as we age, the minutes seem / to pick up speed each day / And suddenly we find that months / and years have flown away.
' The collection ends on a more serious note with
Sick Systems
- '
For good health care / We all can share
' - and
Time to Die
('
For I'll know when and I'll know why / The time has come for me to die.
')
J
anet Cameron Hoult is Professor Emerita at California State University, Los Angeles and part of the proceeds from the sale of
Body Parts
go to the David Cameron Fisher Memorial Scholarship established in memory of her marine biologist son. Anyone who shares the author's aging
body parts
will appreciate her funny poems.
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