PM/AM: New and Selected Poems

“In her work there is a return to the role of the poet as it served the human race for centuries: to fuel our thinking, show us our world in new ways, and to get us to feel more intensely.” The rightness of this summary of Linda Pastan’s poetic career—in the San Francisco Review of Books—will be immediately clear to readers of her new volume, PM/AM.

Instructions to the Reader: Come. Suspend willingly or not your disbelief and with empty pockets enter the room of the story. Warm your fingers at this candle which is only the stub of a dream and at any time may flicker or go out. Here fire consumes itself with paper and pencil for kindling; here a unicorn waits in the corner its musical horn ready. When I tell you this story is pure fact you will want to leave the room. Stay awhile.