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 …
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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 24 November 2024.]
