Search results for ""Author Linda Pastan""

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.

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Reflecting on her long and celebrated career in poetry, two-time National Book Award finalist Linda Pastan was struck by the number of dogs that have appeared in her poems—whether as the primary subject or in the briefest of allusions. Dogs run through these poems, so to speak. The poems span the lighthearted to the serious, from the antics of training a recalcitrant dog to the grief at a beloved dog’s death. With warmth, dignity, and quiet power, Pastan explores the many roles of these devoted animals, from household pet to Argos, Pluto, and the Dog Star. "Envoi" 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.

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This volume brings together new work along with poems gathered from nine previous collections. When Linda Pastan's first book was published in 1971, the Jerusalem Post wrote, she "in large measure fulfilled Emerson's dream — the revelation of ‘the miraculous in the common.' " Since then Pastan has continued to explore the complexities, passion, and dangers under the surfaces of ordinary life. "Some critics point to Emily Dickinson when citing Pastan's lapidary style and metaphysical wit, a comparison that does justice to either poet when Pastan is at her best." — Gettysburg Review "Pastan's unfailing mastery of her medium holds the darkness firmly in check." — New York Times Book Review National Book Award finalist Linda Pastan was Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1991 to 1993.

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These poems chart the journeys of sleepless nights when whole lifetimes seem to pass with their stories: loves lost and gained; children and seasons in their phases; and the world beyond, both threatening and enriching life. The time before sleep acts as an invitation to reflect on the world's quieter movements—from gardens heavy after a first storm to the moon slipping into darkness in an eclipse—as well as on the subtle but relentless passage of time. Insomnia embodies Linda Pastan's graceful and iconic voice, both lucid and haunting.

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