kw: book reviews, poetry, aging, humor
Perhaps best known for the children's book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Judith Viorst is at her most delightful best as a poet. A few years back, her Suddenly Sixty (and Other Shocks of Later Life) provided fuel to the cry, "Sixty is the new Thirty."
Her latest, I'm Too young to be Seventy (and Other Delusions), continues the tradition. I think as a children's author, she has remained better connected with the RIGHT NOW mind of a child, and clearly sees how the luckiest of us recover such a mindset once we're old enough to be free again.
Her poems are short, which suits me. They smack of Ogden Nash: the lines usually vary in length, but tend to rhyme sooner or later. A favorite of mine, "The Secret of Staying Married" exemplifies:
Still married after all these years?
No Mystery
We are each other's habit,
And each other's history.
Whether wise or wicked, languid or lascivious, these lovely little poems hit the reluctantly gray right where they live.
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