Linda Pastan: “But why the last? I ask. Why not / live each day as if it were the first— / all raw astonishment”

Today's poet is Linda Pastan, former Poet Laureate of Maryland and chronicler of daily life

“It never occurred to me that real people could become poets.” —Linda Pastan

Today’s poet is new to me, and I can’t decide whether to feel incredibly happy or incredibly sad about discovering her work—happy that I’ve found her; sad that I didn’t find her sooner!

Finding a new poet can feel like finding an old friend. It can be a paradoxical & mystical encounter; you are encountering “other” and yet you are also encountering “self.”

Pastan writes about this exact phenomenon in “A New Poet,” where she describes the joy of discovering a new poet’s work, how it is like “finding a new wildflower / out in the woods,” one whose name you do not know and who may not even be in a guidebook yet:

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

Read the full poem here at the Library of Congress website.

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Pastan was born in New York City in 1932, but lived most of her adult life with her family in Maryland.

She studied at Radcliffe around the same time as Sylvia Plath, and in fact won first place in a poetry contest in which Plath came in second!

She went on to earn two more degrees—master’s degrees in library science and English—but then she became busy with family life. After Pastan had been a mother for about a decade, her husband urged her to return to writing. She recounts this shift in an interview with The Paris Review:

I married young and gave up poetry almost completely—one or two poems a year—until my husband told me he was tired of hearing what a good poet I might have been if I hadn’t married him. I had just given birth to our third child, but we managed to set up a schedule, complete with babysitters, that would allow me to devote every morning to writing.

She describes how the apprentice-ship of this new daily schedule changed her writing:

The poems I wrote before that time were fairly traditional—strict rhyme and meter, a few of them even picture postcard pretty. But when I allowed myself to become seriously engaged by language, actually sitting down to write every day, I think that my essential voice came very quickly.

Pastan went on to publish 15 books of poetry, win many awards, teach for almost two decades at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and hold the post of Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1991 to 1995.

Read the full interview at The Paris Review.

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One of her lovely poems (with its signature short format) is “Imaginary Conversation,” which begins during an imaginary couple’s morning routine in the kitchen. As Pastan’s narrator contemplates (or complains about?) the coming hectic hours—groceries to buy, doctor appointments to go to—the conversation partner responds by telling her to “live each day / as if it were my last.” She responds by flipping that bit of wisdom around:

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?

The next metaphor is one of my favorites:

You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. 

The poem ends, technically un-resolved, and yet with a feeling of “poetic resolution.” The last image leaves us with the feeling that maybe the dewy morning is large enough & generous enough to hold both perspectives. Or that perhaps what matters most is simply being alive to choose.

                                    I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.

Read the full poem here.

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Pastan died in 2023, at the age of 90. Poet Susan Rich remembers Pastan in her blog:

I am still in shock that Linda Pastan has died. I liked knowing she was in the world. We first met when I was sixteen and she visited my high school library to give a poetry reading.

Twenty years later we met again at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. She was the one that suggested I return to graduate study for an MFA. As she hugged me goodbye at the end of the two weeks, she asked me to keep in touch with her so she could follow my career. I looked over my shoulder sure she must be speaking to someone else.

I love this sentence: “I liked knowing she was in the world.” (I feel that way often, about favorite people, places, and things.)

And what a kindness that was—for the established poet to tell the younger poet that she wanted to follow her career. (And she did!)

Toward the end of her blog post, Rich sums up my feelings about Pastan perfectly. Pastan did not win huge awards or lead a tempestuous life that splashed over into headlines or into the public imagination. And yet, her poems are so lovely and so polished. Over and over, they deliver.

I wonder what it means to write one superb poem after another but not to win the Pulitzer or become Poet Laureate, ¹ to not be given the gold ring by the powers that be? ….I remember telling a professor in my graduate program that she had been an important influence and I could sense his dismissiveness.

Rich ends her post by expressing the hope that soon a collection of critical essays or a biography will capture the spirit of Pastan’s work. (For more about Susan Rich and her work, visit her website.)

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More, please

Read more about her life and work here, with a sampling of poems. (The Poetry Foundation)

Another great site for her life and work, with a sampling of poems. (Poets.org)

In this video, former Poet Laureate of Maryland Lucille Clifton interviews incoming Poet Laureate of Maryland Linda Pastan. The poets chat so genially; it is lovely and sweet and has the patina of something from a gentler time. (We wrote about Clifton in this post a couple weeks ago).

In this wonderful podcast—which is half interview, half poetry reading—we get a glimpse into Pastan’s later work. Her short poems are interspersed throughout. I enjoy the host’s enthusiasm and how familiar she was with Pastan’s work. This podcast is sponsored by the Library of Congress and is a treasure trove.

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What about you? Have you heard of Linda Pastan? Do you have a favorite poem?

See you tomorrow with a new poet!

Jenny

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1. I assume that Rich means here that Pastan didn’t not become a national Poet Laureate, but Pastan did become a state Poet Laureate.