Are You Experienced?: Baby Boom Poets at Midlife - Softcover

This rich anthology tracks boomer girls from birth to, well, knowingness. . . . Their poems are about loss, loneliness, violence, and love. The writers in Boomer Girls touch themes that all generations experience but this generation can express for all of us in ways that quietly bred Emily Dickinson, say, never could what it is to be a girl baby, then adolescent, then woman growing up in America.. Susan Stamberg, NPR's "All Things Considered"" "This rich anthology tracks boomer girls from birth to, well, knowingness. . . . Their poems are about loss, loneliness, violence, and love. The writers in Boomer Girls touch themes that all generations experience but this generation can express for all of us--in ways that quietly bred Emily Dickinson, say, never could--what it is to be a girl baby, then adolescent, then woman growing up in America.." --Susan Stamberg, NPR's "All Things Considered"

In This timely and reflective anthology, the generation that sought to stay forever young reveals that midlife should mean more than jokes about thinning hair, creaking joints, and thickening waistlines. Midlife's insights - whether they be physical, spiritual, or emotional - are indeed startling, and who better than poets to deliver them? The nearly one hundred poets, both men and women, emerging and established, in this anthology move beyond the standard complaints of middle age to more resounding themes that define an entire generation: social, political, and environmental concerns, domestic partnerships and blended families, crises and affirmations of faith. Some poets, like Ann Hostetler in ""Priestess of Love,"" revisit their youthful desires, while others, such as Jim Daniels in ""Blessing the House,"" summon memories of old houses and neighborhoods. The Great Boomer Sellout is acknowledged in poems like Martin Espada's ironic take on an upscale restaurant and Marcia Southwick's melancholy assessment of the news. And poets like Lisa Lewis, Holly Iglesias, and Tony Hoagland appraise the next generation with ironic humor. Each poet seeks an answer to the ambiguous, electric, and open-ended question that has haunted the Baby Boom generation: Are you experienced? And each poet answers emphatically: Yes, Yes, Yes.