Linda Pastan's For a Daughter Leaving Home

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Linda Pastan’s poem, “For a Daughter Leaving Home,” displays how a parent views the life of his or her daughter by relating it to their daughter’s first bicycle ride. Her bicycle ride represents the difficult and stressful journey that the girl has embarked on throughout her life. Although the girl is now grown up and ready to start a life of her own, her parent is recalling everything about the girl’s life up to this point.
The author, Linda Pastan, was born on in1932, on May 27 in New York City, New York. She was the only child of Jacob L. Olenic, a surgeon, and Bess Olneic. She had a relatively normal life growing up. Her parents were from European Jewish descent, but because of their atheistic views, they sent their daughter to a school in Riverdale called Fieldston School. This is “a progressive private school affiliated with the Ethical Cultural Society, a humanist organization for free-thinking Jews” (Johnson 1). Later in life she married Ira Pastan who was a medical student, he later became a molecular biologist, and together they bore three children—Stephen, Peter, and Rachel. The recognition and achievements in education that Pastan received were bountiful. She got her bachelor’s Degree in Literature from Radcliffe in 1954. She then graduated from Simmons College in 1955 with Master of Library. In 1957, she received her master’s degree in English from Brandeis University. Her awards and recognitions are described below:
She has won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Maryland Arts Council grant, as well as several literary awards: Mademoiselle’s Dylan Thomas Poetry Award, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, the Bess Hokin Prize, and the Maurice English Award. PM/AM was nominated for an American B...

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... to ride a bicycle. The purpose of Pastan’s poem is to explain the difficulties of letting a daughter grow up, and to reflect on a memory and to relate that memory to the rest of a girl’s life. Although the daughter’s life was not always a smooth ride, she eventually was stabilized and is now able to embark on any journey that life puts in front of her.

Works Cited

Linda Pastan. “To a Daughter Leaving Home.” Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sight. Ed. Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson. 11th ed. Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2012. 876. Print.
Johnson, Sheila Golburgh. "Linda Pastan." Cyclopedia Of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition (2003): 1-2. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
Paul, Jay, and Philip K. Jason. "Linda Pastan." Critical Survey Of Poetry, Second Revised Edition (2002): 1-5. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.

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