ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Martha Kaplan and Jonathan Galassi, once and present agent and editor, make writing and publishing a pleasure. I owe them more than polite recognition. At FSG, Jo Stewart, Susan Goldfarb, and Lottchen Shivers helped my book see the light of day, as did the copy editor, Ingrid Sterner.
Some of the material in this book has appeared in abbreviated form elsewhere. I have revised and expanded my original thoughts. I offer my thanks to the editors who worked with me at earlier stages: Sudip Bose and Robert Wilson (The American Scholar); Ben Downing and Herbert Leibowitz (Parnassus); Wade Lambert (The Wall Street Journal); J. D. McClatchy (The Yale Review); Mark Oppenheimer (New Haven Review); and Paula Marantz Cohen and Diane Pizzuto (The Smart Set).
When I was in the process of composing and arranging this book’s contents, I began to give serious thought as well to its title. Several friends received one early possibility, “Senior Happiness,” with disapproval or disdain. One of them said jokingly, “Well, at least you won’t call it Senior Moments.” A light came on. I owe a debt of gratitude to this person for the illumination, but I must pay the debt anonymously. I cannot for the life of me remember who gave me this delicious and unexpected suggestion.
Also by Willard Spiegelman
If You See Something, Say Something: A Writer Looks at Art
Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness
In the Frame: Women’s Ekphrastic Poetry from Marianne Moore to Susan Wheeler (coeditor)
Imaginative Transcripts: Selected Literary Essays
Love, Amy: The Selected Letters of Amy Clampitt (editor)
How Poets See the World: The Art of Description in Contemporary Poetry
The Lives and Works of the English Romantic Poets
How to Read and Understand Poetry
Majestic Indolence: English Romantic Poetry and the Work of Art
The Didactic Muse: Scenes of Instruction in Contemporary American Poetry
Wordsworth’s Heroes
A Note About the Author
WILLARD SPIEGELMAN is the Hughes Professor of English at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. From 1984 until 2016, he was also the editor in chief of Southwest Review. He has written many books and essays about English and American poetry. For more than a quarter century he has been a regular contributor to the Leisure & Arts pages of The Wall Street Journal. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
PREFACE
TALK
DALLAS
JAPAN
MANHATTAN
BOOKS
ART
NOSTALGIA
QUIET
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ALSO BY WILLARD SPIEGELMAN
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2016 by Willard Spiegelman
All rights reserved
First edition, 2016
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following previously published material:
An extract from “Speculation,” by Howard Nemerov, courtesy of Alexander Nemerov.
Extracts from “Losing Track of Language,” by Amy Clampitt, from The Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt by Amy Clampitt, copyright © 1997 by the Estate of Amy Clampitt. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Extracts from “Endpoint,” from Endpoint and Other Poems by John Updike, copyright © 2009 by the Estate of John Updike. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Spiegelman, Willard, author.
Title: Senior moments: looking back, looking ahead / Willard Spiegelman.
Description: New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015048666 | ISBN 9780374261221 (hardback) | ISBN 9780374712990 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Spiegelman, Willard. | Authors, American—20th century— Biography. | Authors, American—21st century—Biography. | College teachers— United States—Biography. | Aging—Psychological aspects. | Life change events— Psychological aspects. | Happiness. | Pleasure. | BISAC: SELF-HELP / Aging. | LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Essays. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gerontology.
Classification: LCC PS3619.P5432 Z46 2016 | DDC 814/.6—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015048666
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