Linda Pastan

Okay, I'm still working on what will be a pretty major ... thing. But it takes time, and it's not done yet. In the meantime, here's Linda Pastan.

For my first post for this blog, I looked for a poet who was from "home" - Oregon and/or Washington. Linda Pastan, besides coming with a sound recommendation (more on that later), was the poet laureate for my current state (Maryland) from 1991 to 1995. She was born in New York in 1932, but still lives in Maryland.

Linda Pastan's "Ethics" was suggested to me by a dear friend who also teaches a poetry class. It's still under copyright, and reprinted with permission by Shenandoah Literary, so I don't feel good about re-printing it here. It's been written about by students pretty extensively. All I really have to add to the conversation, is that it's remarkable how easy it is to ask the wrong question. Also, I really like this poem.

You can hear Garrison Keillor's introduction and listen to Linda Pastan reading her poem "Why Are Your Poems So Dark" in this video:

I've wanted a dog for a long time. Someday I will get one, and I hope it's like this:

The New Dog by Linda Pastan 

Into the gravity of my life,
the serious ceremonies
of polish and paper
and pen, has come

this manic animal
whose innocent disruptions
make nonsense
of my old simplicities--

as if I needed him
to prove again that after
all the careful planning,
anything can happen.

Pears by Linda Pastan 

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?
Why else the fruit itself
tawny and sweet
which your lover
over breakfast
lets go your pear-
shaped breast
to reach for?

I Married You by Linda Pastan

I married you
for all the wrong reasons,
charmed by your 
dangerous family history,
by the innocent muscles, bulging
like hidden weapons
 under your shirt,
by your naive ties, the colors
of painted scraps of sunset.

I was charmed too
by your assumptions
about me: my serenity—
that mirror waiting to be cracked,
my flashy acrobatics with knives
in the kitchen.
How wrong we both were
about each other,
and how happy we have been.