The Different Path

Pat Underwood grew up on an Iowa farm across the horizon from where she and her husband raised their two sons. She retired in 2017 from her work in early education and working for the State of Iowa. Since her husband’s death, she remains on their country hillside near Colfax, IA surrounded by poetry-inspiring nature. Her publications include three poetry books: Where I Live (Blue Light Press 2022), Portraits (Finishing Line Press 2017), and Gatherings (Celestial Light Press 2007). Her play kit The Last Supper (Meriwether Publishing Ltd.; Contemporary Drama Service 1997) travels the nation. Underwood’s poems received a 2001 Pushcart Prize Nomination, a 1996 Founder’s Award, and a 2002 Founder’s Award from the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Recently, she was chosen as the winner of the 2025 Vinnie Ream Letters Contest sponsored by the National League of American Pen Women.

Pat Underwood writes clearly and eloquently of family, history, rural life, and nature. She focuses on imagistic details with a microscopic lens, then dramatically transforms the material to the cosmic realm. Tadpoles become frogs, algae shapes into coral, a speck of energy explodes into the Big Bang. In both form and free verse, Underwood’s poetry leads us down a different path of metaphorical insight and discovery.

- Mary Swander, author of The Girls on the Roof

Pat Underwood’s wonderful new collection, The Different Path, offers the reader a consoling, intimate conversation - whether the subject is seafoam or osprey, ultrasound or a long-lost elkhound. Like the ＂iridescent thread＂ of the spider’s web that the speaker observes in the opening poem, these lines transport us with care and surety into our most tender interiors. While many poems address moments of deep ＂bone shivering＂ loss and despair, they also guide us out of the forest of sorrow, back into birdsong - the place where a flower ＂utter[s] itself to the sun.＂These imagistic poems remind us of the vibrant miracle of the world around us, and they demonstrate how openness to love for all things creates kinship, resilience, empathy, and the possibility of renewal.

-Debra Marquart, author of Gratitude with Dogs Under Stars

The Different Path recalls, reminisces, and records the compelling insights of a master poet. As a long-term follower of Pat’s poetry, I have lost count of her numerous first-place awards and prizes. Fortunately for the reader, you can enjoy those winning poems in this book. If you have farm roots or wonder what it was like to grow up in a now lost rural America, Pat’s elegiac memories of family farm life will enchant and enrich you. ＂He imagines seeds / in the dark Iowa loam / are pearls woven in the soil.＂ Other poems reveal her romantic nature and perceptive visions of our shared life experiences. ＂She inhales the perfume of roses, / whispers hello to the bright night stars.＂

- Dennis Maulsby, author of Near Death/Near Life