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)
The world has lost one of the great poets but thankfully he left us a great legacy.
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Dear Anthony
Or to put it another way, you are never alone with a Strand.
Best wishes from Simon
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Thank you for reshaping Strand’s words and sharing them.
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My pleasure! Thank you so much for your constant and kind support. As ever, A
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My pleasure! Thank you so much for your constant and kind support. As ever, A
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oh that is such sad news, only the other day was I reading some of his poems.
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That is a very thoughtful shaping, thank you.
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Thank you for saying so!
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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
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