Linda Pastan was born in New York City to Jacob L. and Bess Schwartz Olenik. She took a B.A. from Radcliffe in 1954, an M.L.S. from Simmons in 1955, and an M.A. from Brandeis in 1957. Married to Ira Pastan since 1953, she has three children. Pastan has won the Mademoiselle Dylan Thomas Poetry Award and the Poetry Society of America's di Castagnola Award.

Pastan's first book, A Perfect Circle of Sun, appeared in 1971 as the forty-fourth volume in the Swallow Press New Poetry Series. It is a solid accomplishment. In these poems she exhibits, as Janet Bloom observes, "an easy, strong, and direct rhythm; and a gift for observation," qualities that, along with her ability to create memorable images and her penchant for examining life's unpleasant emotions, characterize her subsequent verse. Pastan considers one of the seasons in each of this collection's four sections. Her purpose is...