Alice Van Wart teaches literature and writing in the Department of Continuing Education at the University ofToronto. She has published two books of poetry and has written articles on modern and contemporary literature. In the following essay, Van Wart discusses the mode in which Pastan writes, examines the oppositional nature of the poem, and discusses the moral issues presented in "Ethics."

Pastan received her first honor for a poem while she was a student atRadcliffe College in 1954 by winning the Mademoiselle poetry contest. Sylvia Path was the runner up. Though Pastan went on in school and received an M.A. fromBrandeis University in 1957, she married young and had three children. Like many other women of her generation, who put aside their aspirations for domestic life, Pastan set aside her writing to concentrate on her children and home. Yet the desire to write remained, and eventually she returned...