Linda Pastan was born in New York City in 1932. She has published many books of poetry, including The Five Stages of Grief (1981), Waiting for My Life (1981), and PM/AM: New and Selected Poems (1982). She has won the Dylan Thomas Award, the Di Castagnola Award, The Bess Hokin Prize of Poetry magazine, the Virginia Faulkner Award from Prairie Schooner, and a Pushcart Prize. She lives in Potomac, Maryland.