Over the course of her lengthy career, which began in the late 1950s, Pastan has earned a loyal following of readers and critics alike. For her exalting of domestic subjects and her spare style, she has been compared to Emily Dickinson. For her appreciation of nature, its character, and its relationship to people, she has been compared to Walt Whitman. And for her psychological insights, she has been compared to Edgar Allan Poe. In Contemporary Poets, Jay S. Paul remarks, “Like Poe, Pastan has been conscious of the limits of the mind and the impossibility of exceeding them.” Paul also notes that Pastan's perspective is of someone who is very aware of her own human fallibility. He writes that she “has long seen herself as Eve—one of the fallen.” Paul praises the fact that Pastan's “vision.....
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