The Imperfect Paradise

by Linda Pastan

"This is a remarkable book, and it places Pastan among the most satisfying of contemporary American poets." ―Josephine Jacobsen on The Five Stages of Grief in the Washington Post Book World Imperfect Paradise , published in 1988, is Linda Pastan's 4th collection and was a nominee for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Poems deal with birds, the past, children, beauty, rituals, myths, the moon, vacations, aging, death, family life, and hope.

Genres: Poetry

92 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

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

[Eleanor]

I haven't felt this in sync with a book in a long time. Beautiful poems, and a wonderful range of subjects. The book moves you from the withinness of grief out to perhaps the largest grief, the Fall.

[Christopher Olshefski · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was intrigued by the Odyssey themed poems, but found myself blown away by Ars Poetica and something about the trees.

[Travis Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Defies the unevenness pitfall that plagues most collections. The five part structure helps in this, while still leaving uncut the common theme that’s threaded through: aging, dying, saying good-bye. The title leads with this, but we have to wait to the end for reflections on the beginning—or maybe the beginning of the end, namely Eden and the Fall. In a balanced collection, this last part isn’t necessarily better than what comes before, but for a Christian it’s more initially inviting. Maybe it’s the question of free will that hangs with me most after its final closing: “I wonder at God’s plan had Eve refused the apple.”

[Raffy Rillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

You sit at the loom, your hands raised like silhouetted birds, or like a harpist poised at the strings of an instrument whose chords are colors, their slow accumulation, thread by thread— a kind of bleeding upward the way the sky bleeds from the horizon up after certain sunsets.

[Sebastian]

First read: February 26, 2026, Thursday