Traveling Light: Poems

by Linda Pastan

“[Linda Pastan’s] poems are skillfully written with lovely syntax and strong, evocative imagery. Surprising readers with subject and an occasional rhyme, Pastan proves once again that, 12 books later, she is a poet who can ground us, who can astound us. Essential reading for poetry lovers.”—Library Journal

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Adult

92 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 2011

About the author

In 1932, Linda Pastan was born to a Jewish family in the Bronx. She graduated from Radcliffe College and received an MA from Brandeis University.

She is the author of Traveling Light (W. W. Norton & Co., 2011); Queen of a Rainy Country (2006); The Last Uncle (2002); Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems 1968-1998 (1998), which was nominated for the National Book Award; An Early Afterlife (l995); Heroes In Disguise (1991), The Imperfect Paradise (1988), a nominee for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; PM/AM: New and Selected Poems (l982), which was nominated for the National Book Award; The Five Stages of Grief (l978), and A Perfect Circle of Sun (l971).

About Pastan's The Five Stages of Grief, the poet May Sarton said, "It is about all her integrity that has made Linda Pastan such a rewarding poet. Nothing is here for effect. There is no self-pity, but in this new book she has reached down to a deeper layer and is letting the darkness in. These poems are full of foreboding and acceptance, a wry unsentimental acceptance of hard truth. They are valuable as signposts, and in the end, as arrivals. Pastan's signature is growth."

Among her many awards and honors include a Pushcart Prize, a Dylan Thomas Award, the Di Castagnola Award, the Bess Hokin Prize, the Maurice English Award, the Charity Randall Citation, and the 2003 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. She was a recipient of a Radcliffe College Distinguished Alumnae Award.

From 1991 to 1995, she served as the Poet Laureate of Maryland, and was among the staff of the Breadloaf Writers Conference for twenty years. Linda Pastan lives in Potomac, Maryland.

Reviews

[bumblethunderbeast · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can I rank this anything less than a 5 when my husband walks in the room and says "you're smiling, you must be reading that poetry again"? Section 3 (clocks) was by far my favorite with the longing to convert a dozen roses into aphrodisiacal beets, Q&A where a student asks if she knew Emily Dickinson, the Rothko quote "an involvement in light presupposes an acquaintance with shadow," and in Insomnia the image of sleep reluctant as a busy doctor giving me a little time.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered this poet's work in The Poetry of Presence, an anthology of mindfulness poems. In reading Traveling Light I have become a deep appreciator of her wisdom and poetic talent. I will look for more of her work.

[Jeffrey (Akiva) Savett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pastan's newest collection is her strongest yet. If you've never read this Ruth Lilly Prize winning poet who served as Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland then this is the ideal place to start. The book is divided into five thematic sections, the strongest of which are " Years After The Garden, "Somewhere In The World," and "Traveling Light." One of the reasons I liked reading this collection in a week or so is that the poems really form a whole, each one a voice to the chorale of the book. You will hear phrases repeated, colors (like purple) re-appear in surprising places, and a consistently empathic worldview.

Pastan, as almost every great poet does, celebrates the ordinary. In "The Ordinary," Pastant writes: "It is pathetic fallacy/you long for--the roses/nothing but their thorns,/the downed leaves/subjects for a body count/...it is the ordinary/that comes to save you--/the china teacup waiting/to be washed, the old dog/whining to go out." Pastan's belief in the redemptive power of noticing the everyday is intensely uplifting and beautifully rendered.

But Pastan, especially when dealing with the mythologies of the Bible can also write poems which reach a bit more ambitiously towards "the big questions." In "Pears," she writes, "Some say/it was a pear/Eve ate. Why else the shape/of the womb,/or of the cello/whose single song is grief/for the parent tree?" The line about the cello was so beautiful I actually became angry.

This is a short collection--only 77 pages, but almost each and every poem promises a surprise word choice, an unexpected connection. All of them serve to bind us more to the world and to increase our sense of awe. Quite an accomplishment for traveling light.

[Beth Konkoski-Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of Adam and Eve imagery and much thinking about moments in later life. Love her imagery.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

One poem that made me cry and five that I loved enough that I'm gonna need a copy of them. An easy to read collection I really enjoyed. She was 76 when she wrote this and I'm swiftly hurtling toward 40 but I was definitely feeling the "getting old is a real mind fuck" vibe.

[Karla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Precioso.

[Sarah Schantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of a poetry is a beautiful study of time, and all the many elements that involves, including everything from nostalgia to how the concept of the future can cause anxiety. It's strange because until I reached the very last poem with the same title as the book, I'd been thinking of the title as light traveling--as in light, the absence of dark, but then I read it in the context of the phrase: "Travel light," and I suppose, really, it's intended to be taken both ways. I just don't know how or why I hadn't thought of that phrase before.

The collection sparked an idea for a theme for my upcoming autumn workshop series I teach where I will look at time, and sub themes like the two I listed above, as well as aging, and regret, and being present. I haven't articulated it yet, but I'm grateful to Linda Pastan for giving me the seed to further germinate, and I know I will be using several of the poems in this book.

My four stars is probably more like a 4.5, but there were a few poems that felt redundant, like they were too similar to the others, to others that were stronger, and these less strong poems only took away from the better ones. Perhaps the editor is more to blame than the poet for this? And perhaps the intent was to allow them to blur into each other like ghosts, like traces on tracing paper, only with each new poem a little different, slightly altered. I don't know. But I did enjoy spending time with this study on time.

[Jean V. Naggar Literary · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Traveling Light is elegantly humble, achieving lyricism through the skillful handling of plain speech...[Pastan's] poetry gropes toward self-illumination, taking us with her so that we, her readers, are never in the same place at the end of a poem as we are at the beginning.” --Prairie Schooner

“The poems in Traveling Light blend Pastan’s elegiac style with refreshing dashes of self-deprecating humor.” --The Washingtonian

“To read a new book by Pastan is to know again the comfort of sharp observation and lyrical intelligence...The right word telegraphs an exact meaning every time.” --The Washington Independent
Review of Books

“Dark, rhyming lyrics about love and impending loss. The poems may shake you, so be forewarned.” --Alan Cheuse, National Public Radio

“[Pastan's] poems are skillfully written with lovely syntax and strong, evocative imagery. Surprising readers with subject and an occasional rhyme, Pastan proves once again that, twelve books later, she is a poet who can ground us, who can astound us. Essential reading for poetry lovers.” --Library Journal

[Johnny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Linda Pastan is one of my favorite poets. The depth of her poems often turns on some witty self-deprecation, which is something that speaks fluently to my own neuroses. This collection of work focuses a lot on her age (nearly 80 at the time of publication), and yet there is a youthful playfulness to many of her poems. Her sardonic take on aging and is both hilarious and heart-breaking, and I found my noting more than a dozen pieces that I'd like to bring to my students!

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pastan continues to deliver poems of power and grace. I devoured her book and will return to it. Some of my favorites include:

Bread
Noel
Tannenbaum
Insomnia
Counting Backwards
Q and A
Ash
Silence
Anniversary
Flight
Three Perfect Days
In the Har-Poen Tea Garden
Early
Traveling Light

Of the five sections in the book, I most enjoyed the third and fifth ones.

[Gwyneth Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Linda Pastan's poems are always like pebbles dropped in clear water. You can see the stone, the ripples it makes, and the consequences that flow from there. Every poem is a perfect fusion of past and present, of what is and what might be.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thoughtful, delicate poems about seasons, travel, and aging.

[Carine Topal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed in the depth of the poems. I like Pastan's work, but these poems seemed weak, underwhelming.

[Dayna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, my. I LOVE Pastan. This is the first book of hers that I've read, and it won't be the last. She has an Oliver-esque simplicity and clarity of image. She also ponders death quite a bit.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good. I love it when poetry can be put in place. It captures the mood of location a bit better than most travel journals. Very good.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very simplistic writing that manages to capture a complex image. Lovely poems and writing style.

[Austen to Zafón · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy Pastan's work. This one deals mostly with aging and death. Some beautiful work.

[anya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is so imbued with the voice of the author it’s remarkable. It does not feel imitative or iterative, just original and beautiful in its surety. I loved how the author drew from specific inspirations such as quotes or paintings; as a poet myself, I am always grateful for ideas to get me writing! I also just enjoyed the collection as a whole, and the way it was curated and sectioned. Below I will leave some of my favorite quotes:

“and every knife is robbed / of its cutting edge.” (The Burglary)

“For though I don’t believe / in ghosts, I am haunted / by lilacs.” (Lilacs)

“One must have a mind of spring / to regard the cherry tree burdened / with blossom” (The Maypole)

“and the bleeding heart bleeds / only beauty.” (April)

“This frost is beautiful, and yet it kills. / The harvest moon drowns in the lake. // I love the dark (it moves so gradually)” (Bronze Bells of Autumn)

“Age has nothing to do with me.” (Any Woman)

“We fall like leaves, / anonymous as snow” (Ash)

“To leach the personal / from the abstract // is a different kind of death.” (Three Skulls on an Oriental Rug)

“Poor blooming cherry / trapped in miniature beauty. / The spell is bonsai.” (In the Har-Peon Tea Garden)

[Sandra Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dogged authenticity is how I describe Ms. Pastan’s work. Peppered with humor and irony. She has a way with a twist ending a poem, mastering the volta, the trigger—sometimes with humor, sometimes thought-provoking. Pastan is a master at line breaks and enjambement. The whole of this collection is delightful; the verse, compelling. Buy the book and drink it in with a cup of chocolate.

♥️ “Bread,” “March,” “On Seeing an Old Photograph,” “Cows,” “In an Unaddressed Envelope,” “Weights and Measures,” the rack-and-ruin of “Somewhere in the World,” and the play of “Counting Backwards”

[Marne Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linda Pastan was almost 80 when this book came out. There are several poems about aging, but in spite of those, I thought this was the poetry of a much younger woman when I read it. Pastan writes in a deceptively simple style, using observations on daily life to draw larger conclusions about life. Her work reminds me of two of my favorite poets, Barbara Crooker and Faith Shearin.

[Trina Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am THAT heathen with the dog ears in this library book. So many goodies.

[Crystal Rodriguez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave two stars for the two poems I enjoyed out of this book. She had some great lines but nothing I could see as going deeper than I wished it had.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful book of poems.

[Matthew Huff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marvelous.

[Nandan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Almost Dickinsonion poems. Quietly observant and elegant in the New-England-Poet-tradition sort of way.

[Erin O'Riordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"the worm of language penetrates"

[Hannah Gadbois · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In my 76th year,

I know what time and weather
will do to every leaf.

But the camellia swells
to ivory at the window,

and the bleeding heart bleeds
only beauty"

[Tom Romig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pastan casts her spells on the quotidian to make it shine and ache, to reveal its true meaning and import. The day to day is where we live and labor and love, and that is what she animates through piercing insights and arresting images.

[Alarie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Because she writes so clearly, I think Pastan’s a great poet to recommend to readers who usually avoid poetry, thinking poems too snooty and hard to understand. She’ll invite them into the poetry world and show them it’s really their world, too, with a spotlight turned on the small, often missed details.

Like many books by aging poets, these poems are ticking away Pastan’s life, not in a morose way, but by focusing on appreciating the precious time left. She notices everything.

The Garden of Eden is another repeating theme. Here’s an excerpt I particularly liked from “Pears”

“Some say
it was a pear
Eve ate.
Why else the shape
of the womb,
or of the cello
whose single song is grief
for the parent tree?”

Like Pastan, I’m not a fan of winter, so I find it amusing when she says,

“Autumn, that turncoat,
waits at the edge
of the woods with the first
darkening leaves.”

A few passages from “In the Forest,” bring home two earlier comments: that Pastan finds autumn melancholy, but that she’s willing to treasure whatever is left to her.

“The trees are lit
from within like Sabbath candles
before they are snuffed out.
Autumn is such a Jewish season,
the whole minor key of it….
I smell the smoke
and remember winter.
Praise what is left.”

(Note: I prefer earlier collections if you haven't read Pastan before.)

[Christina M Rau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Traveling Light is one of the only collections of poetry that contains poems about nature that do not annoy me. Maybe Linda Pastan’s sectioning of poems helps create a larger picture into which these poems about birds and flowers fit that works for me. The blurb indicates that her work has been compared to Emily Dickinson, so I was more aware of that as I read; one of her own poems indicates the connection, so I guess I just accepted it was true. She has short lines for the most part, but the imagery, though striking, is not startling, nor does she use the Dickinson-Dash as much as Dickinson would. That’s more of an observation than praise or condemnation. Overall, the collection is accessible and a quick read.