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