Mark Strand Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• I haven’t met God and I haven’t been to heaven, so I’m skeptical.

  Mark Strand

  Heaven, Mets, Skeptical

  "Mark Strand, former US poet laureate, dies aged 80". www.theguardian.com. November 29, 2014.

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• When we walk in the sun
  our shadows are like barges of silence.

  Mark Strand

  Silence, Shadow, Sun

  Mark Strand (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.106, Knopf

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• From the reader's view, a poem is more demanding than prose.

  Mark Strand

  Book, Views, Reader

  "In The Presence Of America: A Conversation With Mark Strand". Interview with Katharine Coles, weberstudies.weber.edu. 1992.

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• Usually a life turned into a poem is misrepresented.

  Mark Strand

  Poetry, Poetic

  "In The Presence Of America: A Conversation With Mark Strand". Interview with Katharine Coles, weberstudies.weber.edu. 1992.

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• Those hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined future, of being carried away in streams of promise by a love or a passion so strong that one felt altered forever and convinced that even the smallest particle of the surrounding world was charged with purpose of impossible grandeur; ah, yes, and one would look up into the trees and be thrilled by the wind- loosened river of pale, gold foliage cascading down and by the high, melodious singing of countless birds; those moments, so many and so long ago, still come back, but briefly, like fireflies in the perfumed heat of summer night.

  Mark Strand

  Summer, Strong, Passion

  Mark Strand (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.406, Knopf

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• I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes.

  Mark Strand

  Believe, Limits, Language

  Mark Strand (2000). “The Weather of Words: Poetic Invention”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

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• We all have reasons for moving. I move to keep things whole.

  Mark Strand

  Moving, Reason, Whole

  "Keeping Things Whole" l. 14 (1969)

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• I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.

  Mark Strand

  Thinking, Personality, Triumph

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• And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?

  Mark Strand

  Mother, Children, Sleep

  Mark Strand (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.434, Knopf

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• It's very hard to write humor.

  Mark Strand

  Writing, Humor, Hard

  "In the Presence of America: A Conversation with Mark Strand". Interview with Katharine Coles, weberstudies.weber.edu. 1992.

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• Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light.

  Mark Strand

  Light, Late, Happens

  Mark Strand (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.166, Knopf

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• How those fires burned that are no longer, how the weather worsened, how the shadow of the seagull vanished without a trace. Was it the end of a season, the end of a life? Was it so long ago it seems it might never have been? What is it in us that lives in the past and longs for the future, or lives in the future and longs for the past? (from "No Words Can Describe It")

  Mark Strand

  Past, Fire, Long Ago

  Mark Strand (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.434, Knopf

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• Sometimes he did not know if he slept or just thought about sleep.

  Mark Strand

  Sleep, Sometimes, Knows

  Mark Strand (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.153, Knopf

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• I don't really think it will make much difference to me when I'm dead whether I'm read or not . . . just as whether I'm dead or not won't mean much to me when I'm dead.

  Mark Strand

  Mean, Thinking, Differences

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• From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,
  A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room
  And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up
  From your book, saw it the moment it landed. That's all
  There was to it.

  Mark Strand

  Book, Cities, Shadow

  Mark Strand (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.344, Knopf

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• It came to my house. It sat on my shoulders. Your shadow is yours. I told it so. I said it was yours. I have carried it with me too long. I give it back.

  Mark Strand

  Long, Giving, House

  Mark Strand (2007). “New Selected Poems”, Knopf

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• Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.

  Mark Strand

  Fate, Destiny, Dumb

  Mark Strand (2014). “Collected Poems”, p.208, Knopf

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• I tend to like poems that engage me - that is to say, which do not bore me.

  Mark Strand

  Engagement, Bores

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• Poetry is something that happens in universities, in creative writing programs or in English departments.

  Mark Strand

  Writing, Creative, Program

  "In the Presence of America: A Conversation with Mark Strand". Interview with Katharine Coles, www.weber.edu. 1992.

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• A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

  Mark Strand

  Writing, Thinking, People

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• And Robert Lowell, of course - in his poems, we're not located in his actual life. We're located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life.

  Mark Strand

  True Life, Facts, Courses

  "In The Presence Of America: A Conversation With Mark Strand". Interview with Katharine Coles, weberstudies.weber.edu. 1992.

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• It hardly seems worthwhile to point out the shortsightedness of those practitioners who would have us believe that the form of the poem is merely its shape.

  Mark Strand

  Believe, Shapes, Form

  Mark Strand (2000). “The Weather of Words: Poetic Invention”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated

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• There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest.

  Mark Strand

  Writing, Would Be, Want

  Interview with Katharine Coles, weberstudies.weber.edu. 1992.

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• I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful.

  Mark Strand

  Beautiful, Notion, Concerned

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• I have been eating poetry.

  Mark Strand

  Eating, Has Beens

  "Eating Poetry" l. 1 (1980)

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