What do you think?
Rate this book
Almost an Elegy: New and Later Selected Poems
A moving and incandescent volume from a poet celebrated for her “unfailing mastery of her medium” ( New York Times Book Review ). In poems of graceful lyricism and penetrating observation, award-winning poet Linda Pastan sheds new light on the complexities of ordinary life and the rising tide of mortality. Drawing from Pastan’s five most recent volumes and including over thirty new poems, Almost an Elegy reflects on beauty, old age, and the probability of loss. With signature precision and quiet power, selections from The Last Uncle (2002) and Queen of a Rainy Country (2006) explore childhood, love, landscape, and the many pleasures of the imagination. Poems from Insomnia (2015) and Traveling Light (2011) chime with similar themes of aging, memory, and language. The new poems offer a profound portrait of a poet contemplating her life and the endurance of art, amidst the fleeting beauty of nature and the everyday losses that accompany old age. In “The Collected Poems,” Pastan writes, “For years I wrestled / with syllables, with silence.” Now, after a long and celebrated career, the poet rests “in a hammock of words, waiting / for the sun to rise again / over the horizon of the page.” Whether in a lush evocation of an impressionist painting or a wry and wistful ode to a car key, Pastan finds lucid meaning in the passage of time.
- GenresPoetry
144 pages, Hardcover
Published October 4, 2022
16 people are currently reading
184 people want to read
About the author
Linda Pastan
53 books62 followersIn 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
![Profile Image for s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all].](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.gr-assets.com%2Fimages%2FS%2Fcompressed.photo.goodreads.com%2Fusers%2F1735525095i%2F6431467._UX200_CR0%2C11%2C200%2C200_.jpg&w=128&q=75)
February 5, 2023
‘Poetry is not a code to be broken but a way of seeing with the eyes shut,’ wrote poet Linda Pastan. I love this view of poetry, as a guide through life existing on emotions and vibes more than some academic puzzle to decode, something that harmonizes with your inner being and allows you to feel the rhythms of ideas and existence. I was saddened to learn that Pastan (1932-2023) had passed this week at the age of 90, but reminded of how lovely her words are and how much they meant to me. Pastan is a poet who manages to capture the anxieties that exist in everyday life—the personal moments that occur ‘behind the news of the day’—and often works in themes on grief (‘ Grief is a circular staircase / I have lost you.’), marriage and death. Or, as Pastan says herself, her poems have ‘ interest in metaphor, in the changing of the seasons, in Eden, in the dangers lurking beneath the surfaces of everyday life, in Death just waiting.’ Nominated twice for the National Book Award, Pastan’s poetry is highly moving with a sweetness of slice-of-life moments, managing to be emotionally complex yet blissfully accessible while the surface of the poem still hints at the mysteries to unpack just beneath. A lovely poet with a long legacy, she will be missed yet I am thankful for the words she leaves behind. Such as Imaginary Conversation, which has long been amongst my favorite poems:
You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.
But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?
You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.
This collection does what Selected poems do best: select an overview from the poet’s work that best represents them and here you can find some startlingly good poems. I first came across Pastan in an anthology (it was the poem above) and knew right then and there she was a poet I had to explore further. I love finding a poet who’s words you immediately fall in love with, and few poets have ever captured this feeling as well as Pastan’s own poem about that matter:
A New Poet
Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see
its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way
its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled
red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day; the odor of truth
and of lying.
And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only
in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.
This captures Pastan’s style quite well, with figurative language that embodies feelings of coziness—paintbrushes and pencil, gardens, the sea washing on foggy shore, and other elements where one wouldn’t be wrong to refer to her poems as cottagecore—and Pastan tends to bring landscapes alive in imagery of ‘ dreamlike / rivers of color.’ Her poems tend to be short and concise, something I always really appreciate and this aspect made her a frequent go-to for poems that I would leave around town when I did my public poetry projects. ‘My impulse is always to condense,’ she said in an interview with the Paris Review, ‘and the few times I’ve tried writing prose, or even narrative poetry, I keep chipping away at the words until I may end up with no more than a haiku.’ In this way, Pastan is able to say so much in so little, with each poem being like a seed that in planted in your mind where it will later bloom within your thoughts.
Pastan also has a wonderfully constructed structure to most of her poem, often giving it a rather rhythmic flow. Poems like Insomnia: 3am often use the form to embody elements of the poem. The poem begins:
Sleep has stepped out
for a smoke
and may not be back.
which is lovely imagery, but the short lines in bursts of three also seem to imitate the ticking of the clock that becomes central to the poem. Pastan captures quiet moments in ways that really bring them to life with a great musicality to them and helps us see the beauty of life all around us.
The Dogwoods
I remember, in the week
of the dogwoods, why sometimes
we give up everything
for beauty, lose our sense
and our senses, as we do now
for these blossoms, sprinkled
like salt through the dark woods.
And like the story of pheasants
with salt on their tails
to tame them,
look how we are made helpless
by a brief explosion
of petals
one week in April.
‘There is an age when you are most yourself,’ Pastan writes in Something About the Trees and I love reading an overview of a poets work as you can often see who they are in the moment of each individual collection. While Pastan doesn’t stray far from her primary themes, it is wonderful to watch her thoughts progress over the years. Later poems start to approach death more often, less as a thief in the night but as someone they are preparing to meet. But it is always managed in such comforting prose, such as this from Musings Before Sleep:
The lines on my face are starting
to make me look like photographs
of Auden in old age. If the lines
of my poems could also be
as incandescent as his,
would I be will to look
as worn and wrinkled?’
Farewell to Linda Pastan, but at least she has left a lovely trail of words to follow her. Sweet, accessible, and always moving, these are marvelous words.
4.5/5
Why Are Your Poems so Dark?
Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.
But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?
You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.
This collection does what Selected poems do best: select an overview from the poet’s work that best represents them and here you can find some startlingly good poems. I first came across Pastan in an anthology (it was the poem above) and knew right then and there she was a poet I had to explore further. I love finding a poet who’s words you immediately fall in love with, and few poets have ever captured this feeling as well as Pastan’s own poem about that matter:
A New Poet
Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see
its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way
its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled
red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day; the odor of truth
and of lying.
And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only
in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.
This captures Pastan’s style quite well, with figurative language that embodies feelings of coziness—paintbrushes and pencil, gardens, the sea washing on foggy shore, and other elements where one wouldn’t be wrong to refer to her poems as cottagecore—and Pastan tends to bring landscapes alive in imagery of ‘ dreamlike / rivers of color.’ Her poems tend to be short and concise, something I always really appreciate and this aspect made her a frequent go-to for poems that I would leave around town when I did my public poetry projects. ‘My impulse is always to condense,’ she said in an interview with the Paris Review, ‘and the few times I’ve tried writing prose, or even narrative poetry, I keep chipping away at the words until I may end up with no more than a haiku.’ In this way, Pastan is able to say so much in so little, with each poem being like a seed that in planted in your mind where it will later bloom within your thoughts.
Pastan also has a wonderfully constructed structure to most of her poem, often giving it a rather rhythmic flow. Poems like Insomnia: 3am often use the form to embody elements of the poem. The poem begins:
Sleep has stepped out
for a smoke
and may not be back.
which is lovely imagery, but the short lines in bursts of three also seem to imitate the ticking of the clock that becomes central to the poem. Pastan captures quiet moments in ways that really bring them to life with a great musicality to them and helps us see the beauty of life all around us.
The Dogwoods
I remember, in the week
of the dogwoods, why sometimes
we give up everything
for beauty, lose our sense
and our senses, as we do now
for these blossoms, sprinkled
like salt through the dark woods.
And like the story of pheasants
with salt on their tails
to tame them,
look how we are made helpless
by a brief explosion
of petals
one week in April.
‘There is an age when you are most yourself,’ Pastan writes in Something About the Trees and I love reading an overview of a poets work as you can often see who they are in the moment of each individual collection. While Pastan doesn’t stray far from her primary themes, it is wonderful to watch her thoughts progress over the years. Later poems start to approach death more often, less as a thief in the night but as someone they are preparing to meet. But it is always managed in such comforting prose, such as this from Musings Before Sleep:
The lines on my face are starting
to make me look like photographs
of Auden in old age. If the lines
of my poems could also be
as incandescent as his,
would I be will to look
as worn and wrinkled?’
Farewell to Linda Pastan, but at least she has left a lovely trail of words to follow her. Sweet, accessible, and always moving, these are marvelous words.
4.5/5
Why Are Your Poems so Dark?
Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
February 3, 2023
Why Are Your Poems so Dark?
Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?
And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished
without the dark stain
of alphabets?
When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.
Instead he invented
ebony and crows
and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.
Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"
Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.
September 14, 2025
4.5 stars
April 14, 2025
“We’re signing up for heartbreak
We know one day we’ll rue it
But oh the way our life lights up
The years a dog runs through it.”
I loved the unique intertwining of her reckoning with mortality (the overall theme of this collection) and the innocence of dogs in the final section of this anthology, taken from her book “A Dog Runs Through It” (2018). It really gave me peace, as someone who’s still at times pained by the sudden loss of my family dog even years later, like so many of us who hurt more deeply losing an animal than at the loss of most humans. There’s just something about a lack of closure with them that is harder to reckon with, but these words made me feel grateful for the joy they bring despite their much too-soon departure.
We know one day we’ll rue it
But oh the way our life lights up
The years a dog runs through it.”
I loved the unique intertwining of her reckoning with mortality (the overall theme of this collection) and the innocence of dogs in the final section of this anthology, taken from her book “A Dog Runs Through It” (2018). It really gave me peace, as someone who’s still at times pained by the sudden loss of my family dog even years later, like so many of us who hurt more deeply losing an animal than at the loss of most humans. There’s just something about a lack of closure with them that is harder to reckon with, but these words made me feel grateful for the joy they bring despite their much too-soon departure.
June 19, 2024
Really lovely. Poems soft and observant in a way I don’t think I could ever get away with. Good example that simple = powerful.
February 11, 2024
From Wikipedia: “[Linda Pastan] She was known for writing short poems that address topics like family life, domesticity, motherhood, the female experience, aging, death, loss and the fear of loss, as well as the fragility of life and relationships. Her final collection of poetry was Almost an Elegy, published in 2022.”
I found Ms Patan’s poems beautiful and accessible.
My brother attended his 50th high school reunion last year (mine is this year) and this poem perfectly sums up his experiences.
Class Notes
"My high school class of 1950
is disappearing over the edge
of the world– a snowless avalanche.
Rosalie of the pancake makeup;
Alex who outran us even towards death;
three Susans, two Davids, and a Roger.
When I see our class representative’s
name on an incoming email,
I think of how families must have felt
during World War II when they saw
the Western Union bicycle approaching.
And I remember all of us lining up
in gym class as captains chose their teams.
The line would dwindle until, on one leg
then the other, I was standing almost alone.
Maybe whoever is doing the choosing now
thinks I would be no good at dying."
-------
I found Ms Patan’s poems beautiful and accessible.
My brother attended his 50th high school reunion last year (mine is this year) and this poem perfectly sums up his experiences.
Class Notes
"My high school class of 1950
is disappearing over the edge
of the world– a snowless avalanche.
Rosalie of the pancake makeup;
Alex who outran us even towards death;
three Susans, two Davids, and a Roger.
When I see our class representative’s
name on an incoming email,
I think of how families must have felt
during World War II when they saw
the Western Union bicycle approaching.
And I remember all of us lining up
in gym class as captains chose their teams.
The line would dwindle until, on one leg
then the other, I was standing almost alone.
Maybe whoever is doing the choosing now
thinks I would be no good at dying."
-------
September 25, 2024
My Favourite Poems:
3 - Memory of a Bird *
6 - For Miriam, Who Hears Voices
8 - I Hold My Breath *
9 - Truce
14 - The Tourist
17 - Plunder: To A Young Friend *
19 - Cataracts
20 - Apartment Life *
22 - The Quarry, Pontoise *
23 - Interior, Woman at the Window *
26 - Crimes
27 - How Far Would You Trust Your Art? *
28 - Mirage *
29 - The Collected Poems
35 - The Future
40 - Practicing *
49 - Ghiaccio *
56 - I Married You
59 - Rereading Frost *
61 - Geography
63 - Death Is Intended *
65 - Why Are Your Poems So Dark? *
66 - A Rainy Country
78 - On Seeing An Old Photograph
80 - Silence *
85 - Flight
89 - Insomnia: 3AM *
90 - Consider The Space Between Stars *
106 - Musings Before Sleep *
114 - In The Walled Garden *
115 - I Am Learning To Abandon The World *
122 - Envoi
3 - Memory of a Bird *
6 - For Miriam, Who Hears Voices
8 - I Hold My Breath *
9 - Truce
14 - The Tourist
17 - Plunder: To A Young Friend *
19 - Cataracts
20 - Apartment Life *
22 - The Quarry, Pontoise *
23 - Interior, Woman at the Window *
26 - Crimes
27 - How Far Would You Trust Your Art? *
28 - Mirage *
29 - The Collected Poems
35 - The Future
40 - Practicing *
49 - Ghiaccio *
56 - I Married You
59 - Rereading Frost *
61 - Geography
63 - Death Is Intended *
65 - Why Are Your Poems So Dark? *
66 - A Rainy Country
78 - On Seeing An Old Photograph
80 - Silence *
85 - Flight
89 - Insomnia: 3AM *
90 - Consider The Space Between Stars *
106 - Musings Before Sleep *
114 - In The Walled Garden *
115 - I Am Learning To Abandon The World *
122 - Envoi
January 8, 2026
As a book, it was done beautifully. The dust-jacket and hardback are definitely one of my favourite ones I’ve collected.
As for the poems, for me, the ratio of hit-and-miss would roughly be around 30-70. The second-half of “New Poems” didn’t really landed on me, while “The Last Uncle”, “Insomnia”, and “A Dog Runs Through It” also gave the same energy of the former.
Pastan’s strongest—in this collection—I say would be “Queen of the Rainy Country”.
That said, the theme (i.e. grief, elegy) is consistent throughout the whole book. If there were more bangers, it would easily be a five star for me.
Anyways, here are the banger poems that I love in Almost an Elegy:
- Tulips in a Glass Vase
- Cataracts
- The Clouds
- Why are your poems so dark?
- Years After the Garden
- Last Rites
As for the poems, for me, the ratio of hit-and-miss would roughly be around 30-70. The second-half of “New Poems” didn’t really landed on me, while “The Last Uncle”, “Insomnia”, and “A Dog Runs Through It” also gave the same energy of the former.
Pastan’s strongest—in this collection—I say would be “Queen of the Rainy Country”.
That said, the theme (i.e. grief, elegy) is consistent throughout the whole book. If there were more bangers, it would easily be a five star for me.
Anyways, here are the banger poems that I love in Almost an Elegy:
- Tulips in a Glass Vase
- Cataracts
- The Clouds
- Why are your poems so dark?
- Years After the Garden
- Last Rites
December 31, 2024
An astonishing collection of musings, largely about aging and death
You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.
But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the East?
You grind the coffee,
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.
- Imaginary Conversations
You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.
But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the East?
You grind the coffee,
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.
- Imaginary Conversations
September 28, 2025
4/5: (Read 75%)
Through beautiful poems about death and grief, Linda Pastan creates an atmosphere that is both euphoric and melodramatic. Linda's poems about her father and his grief for his wife were quite beautiful and valuable, while the poems on her soon to be death seemed so calm. All of these emotions and tales were beautifully conveyed, even if some poems seemed to repeat the same subjects multiple ideas - one of the reasons I didn't finish, sadly. Still, I respect Linda and her craftsmanship towards her poems. Would recommend it if you're looking for some fall poetry.
-Constant Reader
Through beautiful poems about death and grief, Linda Pastan creates an atmosphere that is both euphoric and melodramatic. Linda's poems about her father and his grief for his wife were quite beautiful and valuable, while the poems on her soon to be death seemed so calm. All of these emotions and tales were beautifully conveyed, even if some poems seemed to repeat the same subjects multiple ideas - one of the reasons I didn't finish, sadly. Still, I respect Linda and her craftsmanship towards her poems. Would recommend it if you're looking for some fall poetry.
-Constant Reader
February 27, 2023
CONSIDER THE SPACE BETWEEN STARS
Consider the white space
between words on a page, not just
the margins around them.
Or the space between thoughts:
instants when the mind is inventing
exactly what it thinks
and the mouth waits
to be filled with language.
Consider the space
between lovers after a quarrel,
the white sheet a cold metaphor
between them.
Now picture the brief space
before death enters, hat in hand:
these vanishing years, filled with light.
Consider the white space
between words on a page, not just
the margins around them.
Or the space between thoughts:
instants when the mind is inventing
exactly what it thinks
and the mouth waits
to be filled with language.
Consider the space
between lovers after a quarrel,
the white sheet a cold metaphor
between them.
Now picture the brief space
before death enters, hat in hand:
these vanishing years, filled with light.
May 15, 2023
I have been following Linda Pastan when I first started studying poetry in 1992. She remains one of my favorites. I think this last book, "Almost an Elegy" is so appropriately named since it came out in 2022 and she died this year. Seems as though she has been thinking about death for sometime. Her poems offer her thoughts about an never ending topic of interest for poets and writers in general and people in general. Yes! Five stars from me to a master! I will read this again and again.
January 24, 2025
The last book to be published before the Author passed away an year later.
Linda Pastan's Almost an Elegy is a moving collection of poems that explores the complexities of ordinary life and the rising tide of mortality. The collection includes over thirty new poems, focusing on themes of nature, beauty, old age, and loss. The poems offer a profound portrait of a poet contemplating her life and the endurance of art. Love every bit of this collection.
Linda Pastan's Almost an Elegy is a moving collection of poems that explores the complexities of ordinary life and the rising tide of mortality. The collection includes over thirty new poems, focusing on themes of nature, beauty, old age, and loss. The poems offer a profound portrait of a poet contemplating her life and the endurance of art. Love every bit of this collection.
December 19, 2023
In equal parts poignant, even gloomy, and also uplifting, especially when a dog runs through the poems. Growing old, marriage, family, the calm but sobering lessons of the natural world, mortality, this book has it all, and more. What a life, and Pastan’s death is as devastating to me as a long-time reader as this book by the end.
June 11, 2023
A great poet but not her best poems. These from the twilight of her life are seeped in melancholy. Some are moving , evocative and greasy . . Too many are about writing poetry or particular paintings .
March 5, 2023
Review to follow.
March 7, 2023
One of my favorite poets. If you’re a fan of short poems, give one of her books a try.
June 22, 2023
Some bangers, some corn.
January 9, 2024
My heart hurt throughout this read. The grief nearly went over my head. I would read it again in the future and try it from an older age.
February 12, 2024
3.5 rating
March 18, 2024
Wondeful poems, and as well put-together as an anthology can be.
January 14, 2025
First Read: January 14, 2025, Tuesday
September 8, 2023
A collection of new and selected poems that reflect life and observations.
from A Different Kind of April: for Joan: "Heat like a hand presses down / on the heart. // No spring at all this year, / only a memory of green emerging, // of crocuses and forsythia. Of you / alive"
from Truce: "This is for my surgeon father at last / whom I've desecrated in poem after poem / for punishing me with silence, for caring too much / about the exact degree of love and respect / my adolescent self let trickle down to him"
from Almost an Elegy: for Tony Hoagland: "Your poems make me want / to write my poems, // which is a kind of plagiarism / of the spirit."
from A Different Kind of April: for Joan: "Heat like a hand presses down / on the heart. // No spring at all this year, / only a memory of green emerging, // of crocuses and forsythia. Of you / alive"
from Truce: "This is for my surgeon father at last / whom I've desecrated in poem after poem / for punishing me with silence, for caring too much / about the exact degree of love and respect / my adolescent self let trickle down to him"
from Almost an Elegy: for Tony Hoagland: "Your poems make me want / to write my poems, // which is a kind of plagiarism / of the spirit."
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews