How I Built a Poetry Collection Around Life Stages, Decades

Last updated on: May 17, 2026 at 1:14 pm by Tricia Gates Brown

0 Comments

How I Built a Poetry Collection Around Life Stages, Decades 2026-05-17T13:14:28-07:00 Tricia Gates Brown

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

poetry collection about life stages

{Photo by Sultan Mehmood for Scopio}

A Poetry Collection about Life Stages

With what phrases, word, or feeling tones would you describe the decades of your life? As I pondered how to organize a poetry collection about life stages and aging, decades became the shape. I organized the poems into five sections, starting at tens-teens and ending at my fifties—my current decade. The book is entitled Of a Certain Age and is due out in a couple of months.

The phrases/words I’d use to describe my decades are: 10s/teens: loss of innocence; 20s: self-discovery; 30s: motherhood, disillusionment; 40s: cost of love, loss; 50s: clear-eyed mutuality. Tell me, in the comments, what words you’d use to describe your decades.

How Our Decades Often Align: Themes We Share Across a Lifetime

When I think of conversations I’ve shared with friends through the years, I notice the themes of our decades often align. For example, for many of my friends, as for me, the thirties held painful disillusionment regarding what life was and was not. The forties held deep love, but also heartbreaks, divorces, affairs, transitions or coming out, estrangements, grief. All of us are unique; yet we often move through certain stages at certain ages.

How 9/11 and the Iraq War Helped Shape the Feeling Tone of My Thirties

When I think of my life by decades, I remember how the feeling tone of my thirties orbited the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I was thirty-one when 9/11 happened. I remember when, after reading certain emails on a list-serve first thing in the morning, I realized something horrible had happened. I attached an old rabbit-ear antennae to our un-cabled television to watch the news as it unfolded. The scenes of that morning played out in grainy images I still remember in this, the twenty-fifth year since 9/11.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grayed the contours of my thirties in profound ways. Though they felt very far away, a friend of mine—a peace worker—was taken hostage in Iraq for almost four months in 2005—bringing that war terribly close for a time.

Imagining Joy Amid War: A Poem That Still Resonates

In one poem in Of a Certain Age, in part III of the collection (30s), I envision Iraqi and Afghan people loving in all the ways they love amid war. I didn’t want only to imagine them joyful at some time beyond the present. I wanted to envision their finding joy in the right now of the poem. I call it “Imagine.” When I read it today, I think of the people of Gaza, of Iran and Lebanon, of Ukraine, of Sudan, of Cuba. Of all the places where people are living amid war.

Imagine: A Poem From Of a Certain Age

If you liked this article, please leave me a comment below; I am interested in your perspective. To support my writing, please subscribe and share with a friend!

Wren, winner of a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal

Winner of the 2022 Independent Publisher Awards Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction; Finalist for the 2022 National Indie Excellence Awards. (2021) Paperback publication of Wren , a novel. “Insightful novel tackles questions of parenthood, marriage, and friendship with finesse and empathy … with striking descriptions of Oregon topography.” —Kirkus Reviews (2018) Audiobook publication of Wren.

Progressive Christian

Home and Religion

History and Religion

About Tricia Gates Brown

Tricia Gates Brown is a writer/editor in Oregon’s Willamette Valley whose debut novel Wren won a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal. Her second novel, Finding Something to Love, will be published in 2027 by Vine Leaves Press. She publishes widely in literary journals and holds a PhD from University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Aside from writing, she creates art from the home she shares with her spouse and a bevy of beloved cats. Her first collection of poetry, Of a Certain Age, will be published in Spring 2026 by Fernwood Press, and her second, Blessings, Curses, is forthcoming from the same. Read more at https://triciagatesbrown.net . You can read more about the author here.

Previous Post

April 14, 2026

Why I Do My Best Work When Not Thinking: On Instinct & Flow