Writing Poems With Seniors

Poetry is a way to transmute lead into gold.

I teach poetry classes to senior citizens. I love working with people who’ve come to the final chapter in their lives and who no longer feel a need to prove anything. They’ve raised families, had careers, traveled the world and survived all manner of illness and calamity. I’ve worked with a fighter pilot who was shot down over Vietnam, a linguistics professor who survived a brain aneurysm, a novelist struggling with depression.