In an interview in 1979, Mark Strand identifies the dichotomy that is at the heart if his vision:
If you’re as deeply alienated as I am or as I believe I am [then] you’re at some loss to know if the life you have is yours because you have it or because you say you have it. There is something more real about the representations of my life that culminate as poems than in the everydayness of my living. (Acts of Mind, 15).
For Strand, it is a reality that must be continually rewritten: the typical Strand poem ends at an edge, a boundary that suggests the need for further exploration of the self. As he notes near the end of “The Way It Is”, a poem in which dream and reality intersect …
Please log in to
consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing
institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on
campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we
offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If
you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal
subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.
4034 words
Citation: Jackson, Richard. "Mark Strand". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 March 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4258, accessed 31 October 2024.]
