“A greeting that not only gives great pleasure but illuminates our lives – like a message in a bottle”—Robert McCrum, writer and editor

“Ten Poems about Getting Older” is a title in the “Instead of a Card” series, based on the idea that sending a greeting card is a lovely gesture, and sending a booklet of poetry an even more meaningful one.

Being old isn’t what it used to be. Sixty is the new forty. The world is full of expressions designed to make us feel better about the inevitable passing of the years.

This fascinating mini-anthology of poems selected by John McCullough—which includes the three winners of the publisher's “getting older” poetry competition—opens with an enlivening meditation on the meanings of the word spry. The speaker delights in hopping up and down some hotel stairs when no one is looking and in the fact of being “inescapably me.” It matters not one jot that he is:

like a dancer running out of melody,
a boulevardier running out of boulevard,
a prizewinner running out of shelf

from Hop by Alasdair Paterson

The poems look in both directions, backwards to heydays of young love and time deliciously misspent, and forwards to the perils and thrills of middle age and beyond.

Each pamphlet is gorgeous both inside and out, beautifully produced with a cardstock cover, Ex Libris bookplate, and a bookmark gift enclosure with space for an inscription to the recipient.

With a cover created by a leading contemporary artist and poems hand-picked to speak to every kind of reader, each “Instead of a Card” title offers a richly rewarding reading journey. Produced using biodegradable and sustainable materials. 

Poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Rita Dove, Mark Granier, John McCullough, Frank O’Hara, Alasdair Paterson, Elvire Roberts, Judith Shaw, and Jackie Wills.

Dimensions 5.5” x 8.25”; 13 pages