I am sad because the great American poet Mark Strand has died.
Among the tributes to him in the last few days was this, from an interview with The Paris Review: The Art of Poetry No 77 (1998).
The words belong to Strand. I have merely reshaped them on the page.
When I read poetry
I want to feel myself
suddenly larger…
in touch with –
or at least close to –
what I deem magical,
astonishing.
I want to experience
a kind of wonderment.
And when you report back
to your own daily world
after experiencing the strangeness
of a world sort of recombined
and reordered in the depths
of a poet’s soul,
the world looks fresher somehow.
Your daily world
has been taken out of context.
It has the voice of the poet
written all over it,
for one thing,
but it also seems suddenly more alive…
Mark Strand (1934-2014)
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
Published by Anthony Wilson
I am a lecturer, poet and writing tutor. I work in teacher and medical education at the University of Exeter. My anthology Lifesaving Poems was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2015. In 2012 I published Riddance (Worple Press), a collection of poems, and Love for Now (Impress Books), a memoir, about my experience of cancer. My most recent books are Deck Shoes (Impress Books, 2019), a book of prose memoir and criticism, and The Afterlife (Worple Press, 2019). In 2023 I will publish The Wind and the Rain, my sixth collection of poems, with Blue Diode Press. My current research project, with Sue Dymoke from Nottingham Trent University and funded by the Foyle Foundation, is Young Poets' Stories: https://youngpoetsstories.com/. This blog is archived by the British Library.
View all posts by Anthony Wilson
Anthony Wilson 
The world has lost one of the great poets but thankfully he left us a great legacy.
LikeLike
Dear Anthony
Or to put it another way, you are never alone with a Strand.
Best wishes from Simon
LikeLike
Thank you for reshaping Strand’s words and sharing them.
LikeLike
My pleasure! Thank you so much for your constant and kind support. As ever, A
LikeLike
My pleasure! Thank you so much for your constant and kind support. As ever, A
LikeLike
oh that is such sad news, only the other day was I reading some of his poems.
LikeLike
That is a very thoughtful shaping, thank you.
LikeLike
Thank you for saying so!
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Pamela Turton and commented:
“When I read poetry
I want to feel myself
suddenly larger…”
Tribute to Mark Strand by Anthony Wilson
LikeLike