Love Poem

“Love Poem” by Linda Pastan appears in her tenth collection, The Imperfect Paradise, published in 1988 by W.W. Norton & Company. The poem is free verse, with no formal meter or rhyme scheme. It consists of relatively short lines. In the poem, which Pastan wrote when she was in her fifties, the speaker voices a plain desire to pen “a love poem” (Line 2) as wild and uncontained as a spring creek overflowing its banks. The speaker metaphorically positions herself and her lover at the edge, watching the rushing water wash over and wash away everything in its flow. As the torrent persists, the speaker tells her partner that they must hold onto one another, or risk being pulled into the current. “Love Poem” offers the perspective of speaker who has seen the effects of many seasons and knows how life can come on as powerfully and unexpectedly as a flood. Two people can hang on to one another through life’s rushing waters, the speaker says, if they remember to hold one another safe.

Poet Biography

Linda Pastan was born in New York City on May 27, 1932, the only child of Jacob and Bess Olenik.