Both Linda PastanÆs (2002) The Last Uncle and Sharon OldsÆ (2002) The Unswept Room deal with themes of mortality and aging, but in quite distinct ways. PastanÆs poems in The Last Uncle deal primarily with loss, death, and the aging process and their impact on the individual. However, as McKee (2002) notes, in his review of the collection, ôIn these careful, insightful considerations of time and its occasional rough edges, the poet finds much to celebrateö (106). OldsÆ collection of poems deals as much with family dysfunction and sexuality as they do death and aging. However, OldsÆ poems are much more caustic, graphic, and self-involved. One critic maintains, of the works collected in The Unswept Room, that Olds ôwrites poetry of sheer, unreconstructed pathos that is not so much autobiographical as autobiologicalùabout herself from the neck downö (Reasons 2003, 76).
Despite the different language and tone of each womanÆs approach to poetry, both convey a preoccupation with the inevitability of death and the impact of aging on individual experience and perception. This is true both in psychological and biological terms, with respect to their impact on the individual. However, PastanÆs poems on mortality and aging belie a greater acceptance and appreciation of their inevitability and the riches they also impart than do OldsÆ works on similar themes.
The tone of Pastan toward mortality appears to be one of willing acceptance of an inevitability faced by all living things. Her use of language often focuses on natural imagery (ôdaffodilsö, ôdeerö) and is inspired by the artistic qualities found in observing life. In Women on the Shore, Pastan sets the main tone of her collection with respect to mortality. We see in this poem the allusion to Edvard MunchÆs woodcut of the same title, but also an appreciation of natural wonder and a willingness, albeit reluctant, to embrace death as one more natural phenomeno...