BOOK REVIEW : Voices That Speak to Older Women : WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE: An Anthology of Short Stories and Poetry. With a preface by Jenny Joseph; <i> Edited by Sandra Martz</i> ; Papier-Mache Press; Hardcover, $16; Paperback, $10; 180 pages

Some years ago Germaine Greer published a powerful personal essay on the subject of aging. In it she put forth the idea that women needn’t view life after 50 with anxiety or sadness. Aging doesn’t signify the end of beauty or desirability, Greer said, but rather the beginning of liberation from sexual and cosmetic game playing.

It’s a theme picked up in “When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple,” a collection of poetry and stories about women and aging. The title comes from a poem called “Warning” by the English poet Jenny Joseph. In it a gabby middle-aged woman defiantly sets forth her intentions to forget conventions when she reaches old age, to “wear purple with a red hat which doesn’t go,” to pick flowers in other people’s gardens, to wear slippers in the rain--to make up for the sobriety of her youth.

I was astonished when my mother quoted me this poem recently. Its popularity has caught on, traveling like wildfire across the living rooms of America.

First published in 1987 by a fledgling press in Watsonville, Calif., “Warning” and “Old Woman” have become something of a publishing phenomenon. The first printings sold 150,000 copies. This year, it was named one of the books that booksellers most enjoyed selling. There must be a sizable audience for its message, which is, “Know Thyself: relieve yourself of the burden of trying to conform.”

These stories take us into the confidence of crones in rest homes and follow the daily troubled routines of live-in mothers not wanted in a daughter’s house. They depict bag ladies “tattered and frayed with the effort of making a soul.” They celebrate individuality and old age, and the result is that most of the women have a sort of grace with a pleasant dottiness.

There’s one fine story, for instance, called “Out of the Lion’s Belly,” by Carole L. Glickfeld, about an art teacher whose trip to Africa so inflames her imagination that she becomes odd and is fired from her job, although she continues to take pupils privately and passes on to them her artistic vision of the world.

In another tale, “Gracefully Afraid” by Mary Anne Ashley, the female narrator bemoans the decline of an aging friend who she feels is letting herself go, and yet it’s a sly story in that by the time you reach the end, the conventional life has begun to look rather repulsive.

“Glory” is a powerful two-page stream-of-consciousness piece by Charlotte Watson Sherman about a black woman living among winos:

“They don’t mess with me too much. They know I ain’t got no quarter to give em to buy a bottle and I cuss em out good and loud when they forget and try to panhandle me. Now, I know they’ll try to take advantage of some of the women down here that go around lookin like stray rabbits. And I done told a few of em to get em a piece of broken whiskey bottle and keep it right next to em so when some fool tries to get funny and starts rubbin up on em or grabbin on em they can either pull the piece out and give em a warning or they can do what I had to do one time and don’t give no warning, just stick em.”

The contributors to this volume aren’t names you recognize, but they suggest the rich mix: Edna J. Guttag, Billie Lou Cantwell, Randeane Doolittle Tetu, Rafael Jesus Gonzalez, Enid Shomer--the list goes on, 64 of them--writers, poets, translators, teachers.

Poems have titles like “The Coming of Winter” and “Last Visit to Grandmother.” They are about many things--they celebrate aging, leak out a little rage and tell stories about husbands and lovers--and are filled with an appealing minor heroism.

The strengths of the book are the mixture of photographs, poetry, stories, and the fact that it sounds a message, addressing a group that needs and wants to hear it.

Next: Carolyn See reviews “Meridian 144” by Meg Files (Soho).