Dreams

Poetry magazine published “Dreams” by Jewish-American writer Linda Pastan in its December 1979 issue. The lyric poem examines the dreaming experience on both a group and personal level. Pastan mythologizes and dramatizes a person’s internal complexities in “Dreams.” In the process, she also reveals the person’s thoughts and environment. She returns to the dynamic between the internal and external throughout her work.

Pastan, who stopped writing to raise her children, resumed her career amidst the feminist movement of the 1970s. During this period, women writers and editors increasingly spotlighted women’s interior lives, contextualizing them to understand and explain broader cultural treatments of women. Key figures like Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde used dream-like imagery, pacing, and settings. Pastan tapped into the trend as well as demonstrated in “Dreams.”

Pastan wrote “Dreams” in the same year as she published her fifth poetry collection, Selected Poems. The poem and collection capped off a productive first decade for Pastan, with her first collection, A Perfect Circle of Sun, coming out in 1971. She released On the Way to the Zoo, Aspects of Eve, and The Five Stages of Grief over the next seven years.

In “Dreams,” Pastan posits dreams reflect the dreamer’s life, offering opportunities to understand themselves and connect with those no longer in their lives.