A Shropshire “protest poet” is raging against ageing in a newly-published collection of her work.
Age Rage is a compilation of 20 “exasperated verses” by Helen Carlyle of Ludlow devoted to questioning the positive spin given to the ageing process.
Helen, who is herself 67, says there’s a sort of euphoria in which getting old is pictured as a wonderful experience, and that people drift from a life of vitality, energy and optimism at the age of 40, to a similar state at the age of 80, with the odd creaking bone or memory lapse thrown in for good measure.
“Hello? This is pure codswallop,” she says, bluntly.
“When things stop working, they stop working big time.
“I agree getting old isn’t all bad - just most of it.”
The self-published booklet is strikingly packaged within a sleeve, and the booklet inside has a metallic mirror finish and is held together by screws.
Her work may already be familiar to people in Ludlow because of a poem which she says has been “spattered about the town” about the new parking measures introduced there.
It is called Watch This Space (If You Can Find One).
“I think it has had some effect because they have taken the parking meters out of commission for four weeks,” said Helen, who uses the name Helen Carlyle for her writing, made up of elements of her “real name”.
Her married name is Sue Walsh - her full name is Susan Mary Helen Carlyle Walsh.
She said of her collection: “It has some wonderful illustrations by Jemima Carter-Lewis and pithy and poignant poems about getting old and how horrible it is.
“I’m a protest poet. Anything that narks me, I write poetry about it. My work is funny, but has got meaning to it as well. It isn’t just frivolous - it has an edge to it.
“With this book, people who read it say ‘My God, I know exactly how that feels.’
“I wrote one about an elderly woman who lies on her sofa giving orders to her daughter.
“The person I wrote it about, I know really well. When she read the poem she said: ‘I know somebody just like that!’”
Helen began her literary life as a sub editor on a fiction magazine, and went into copywriting and producing adverts and documentaries, wrote screen plays and scripts for films, and later ran her own PR agency, also designing and manufacturing products for Woolworths, Kellogg’s, and Boots.
She says she turned to poetry as a way of expressing her unique view on life and its little foibles.
Age Rage costs £9.99 and is on sale at the Castle Bookshop in Ludlow, Burway Books in Church Stretton, and Pengwern Books in Shrewsbury, directly from PerVerse Publications by emailing helencarlyle@perversepublications.com, or by phoning (01584) 875010.
To give a flavour of her poetry in Age Rage, here is an example:
ANNUAL LEAVE (OF MY SENSES!)
I can honestly say I was nuts in May,
In June and July, I was hardly “au fait”.
I was balmy in August, September time too,
The whole of the summer, I just
muddled through.
October, November, saw little respite,
December and January - I was ALL RIGHT!
Till the February gloom and the mad March depression,
Gave me reason to think I was in for “a session”.
April gave way, and the flowers started blooming,
Another clear sign that dementia was looming!
And now the year’s over, I’m happy to say,
That I’m mad as a hatter, and staying that way!
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