Notes from the Delivery Room
Pastan, Linda
Primary Category:
Literature /
Poetry
Secondary Category:
Literature /
Poetry
Genre: Poem
-
Annotated by:
- Aull, Felice
- Date of entry: May-17-2006
Summary
Amusing, and lovingly told in the first person, the poem describes the comically embarrassing physicality of giving birth and considers the profound implications of this life event: the sex act from which conception originates, the anguish of losing a child; the fearful joy of welcoming a new life into the world. During labor, the mother is also aware that the doctors expect her to perform, "the audience grows restive," but in the end they are of no consequence as it is "just me, quite barefoot / greeting my barefoot child."
Miscellaneous
Also available in: Carnival Evening (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998)
Primary Source
PM/AM: New and Selected Poems
Publisher
W. W. Norton
Place Published
New York
Edition
1982
Secondary Source
PM/AM: New and Selected Poems