Product Description

In this compilation of older and newer poems, Strand demonstrates his mastery of cadence and narrative style.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #431258 in Books
• Published on: 1990-09-26
• Released on: 1990-09-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

From Library Journal
Published simultaneously?though the Selected Poems is an update of a 1980 edition?these two books reveal a "laconic, surreal vision" (LJ 11/1/90).
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap
In this compilation of older and newer poems, Strand demonstrates his mastery of cadence and narrative style.

Customer Reviews

Strand's a painter of words
Mark Strand's poetry speaks volumes even in this thin-ish book of selected poems. It's my favorite of poetry books by living English-speaking writers. His early work reflects influences from Latin Surrealists like Octavio Paz. He moves later to the personal...autobiographical, beautiful elegies, and words on that basic thread that ties together the human experience...love. But enough of the pretentious crap on poetry that exists out there already in useless spades, on to the meat and bone of the matter, the poet's words. You be the judge. Here are some of my more favorite lines: "Tonight as it gets cold tell yourself what you know which is nothing but the tune your bones play as you keep going." from "Lines for Winter" "She slept without the usual concerns, the troubling dreams--the pets moving through the museum, the carved monsters, the candles giving themselves up to darkness. She slept without caring what she looked like, without considering the woman who would come or the men who would leave or the mirrors or the basin of cold water." from "She" "Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry...She does not understand. When I get on my knees and lick her hand, she screams. I am a new man. I snarl at her and bark. I romp with joy in the bookish dark." from "Eating Poetry" and finally "The meek are hauling their skins into heaven. The hopeless are suffering the cold with those who have nothing to hide...There are stones in the sea no one has seen. There is a shore and people are waiting. And nothing comes back. Because it is over. Because there is silence instead of a name. Because it is winter and the new year." from "Elegy for my Father"

Amazing...
This collection proves Mark Strand to be one of the most amazing, talented contemporary poets. Easy for a poetry beginner to appreciate and understand, yet complex enough for the biggest poetry buff to love, this book made me think over and over again about the thoughts Strand so elegantly examines. I had the luck to be able to see Strand read, and his wit and grace impressed me almost as much as his work does. If you are interested in reading contemporary poetry, or already love the likes of Simic, Tate, Wright, Ashbery, etc, pick up this book and let Stand's magic take you away.

Like a Schubert Piano Sonata
hauting, ethereal, sparse, strand is, for me, the king of metaphor, and in some ways suspense. a wonderful selection, a desert island choice ... for the deserted.