Mona Van Duyn

Mona Van Duyn was a Pulitzer-prize winning poet and the first female poet laureate.
  • Miki Lowe

    Late Loving

    A poem by Mona Van Duyn, published in The Atlantic in 1986

  • Late Loving

    “What Christ was saying, what he meant [in the story of Mary and Martha] was that the pleasures of that hair, that ointment, must be taken. Because the accidents of death would deprive us soon enough. We must not deprive ourselves, our loved ones, of the luxury of our extravagant affections. We must not try to second-guess death by refusing to love the ones we loved. . . .”
    —Mary Gordon, Final Payments