Linda Pastan Essay

In “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan (reprinted in Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sounds, and Sense, 12th ed. [Stamford, Cengage Learning, 2009] 869-870), is a very emotional poem about a daughter who is leaving home for the first time to live on her own. A mother recalls how she taught her young daughter at the age of eight to ride a bike, and her fear for her safety while watching her learn. She is growing up faster than her mother expects her…

Linda Pastan is an American poet of Jewish background. She was born and raised in the Bronx, and during her childhood she was “saturated with the domestic details and cultural expectations of Old World Jewry,” (eNotes). She is known for writing short poems that address topics like family life, motherhood, female experience, aging, and death. Paul Martinez was born and raised in suburban Chicago. There isn't much information regarding his childhood. He is known for writing short poems that…

Linda Pastan's "Jump Cabling" is a love story like many. "Jump Cabling" however, is a short poem about jump starting a car as a metaphor for an intimate love story between the two strangers. Pastan's poem uses a peculiar but important structure and form along with alliteration, metaphor, symbol, and allusion to bring the mundane affairs of romance to life. The poem itself is a metaphor for an intimate encounter the speaker has with a stranger. The author uses the woman's car breaking down…

Growing up is hard. But you can keep fighting through it. Growing up means that life can be difficult, so you need to push through, some people won’t be in your life, so you must learn for yourself, and you become further from you parents so it will be hard. To begin with, growing up can mean life can be difficult, but you must push through. The metaphorical poem “Mother to Son”, by Langston Hughes (1902-1967), demonstrates this. In the poem (lines 3-9), it says, “It’s had tacks in it, and…

Moving On Many people have a tendency to forget that poetry and music go hand in hand. They are both forms of expression and what one poem says can reflect a song playing on the radio. An example of this would be “Leaving the Island” by Linda Pastan and “It’s Time” written and performed by Imagine Dragons. The point that these two forms of expression are trying to convey is that life is a cycle. Change of scenery and growing up is bound to happen, whether the person experiencing the change is…

One of the most basic and treasured relationships of humans is that of the one between parent and child. Even as society has changed over the years this single bond remains a prominent cornerstone of the human make up. Such kinship is a common topic among poets as they recount to the reader their thoughts and feelings, not only from the child 's point of view but also that of the parents. Many of the poets presented in this essay draw on their own personal experience to tell their own unique…

Dysfunctional Members Dysfunctional family members are in most families. The dysfunctional member has unhealthy behaviors and attitudes, is unable to function properly, and has issues with his or her psychosocial functioning. There can be multiple members in a family that are dysfunctional in the home environment. There are characteristics in one’s life that make him or her dysfunctional within the home environment, such as holding members of ones family to expectations that they are unable to…

| | | | | |Ben Jonson |Linda Pastan |John Donne | |Lord Byron | | | | |“we’re…