Product Description
From Sleeping with One Eye Open (1964) through the wonderful middle work that includes The Continuous Life (1990) and crowned by the Pulitzer Prize–winning Blizzard of One (1998) and his most recent new collection, Man and Camel (2006), this book gives us an essential selection of Mark Strand’s poetry from across the entire span of his remarkable career to date. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Strand's Poetry
I purchased this collection of Strand's poetry after reading a review in the New Yorker Magazine which also reviewed a new release of Robert Hass's works. Strand's poems are beautiful and thought provoking.He has a way of using words that I've never experienced before.One of my favorites, "Moontan,"takes me away to a distant place that rings familiar.The same would be true with "The Good Life," which make me think about how short and unpredictable life is. I would recommend this book highly to those who love poetry or to those for whom this might be their first purchase of a book of poems.Strand is one of the great American poets.Nothing quite like curling up in an over stuffed leather chair in front of a fireplace with a glass of portand reading these poems while Bach's Cello Suites play in the background.

Brilliant-and Accessible-- Poetry
Strand's most recent collection provides a compelling selection of his brilliant poetry.The poems develop a haunting sense of a world ready to crack but one that is held together by the moral and aesthetic force of Strand's imagination.Some of the poems are puzzlers; most are the kind you want to read aloud to someone near you.

Young Lion in Winter
Poets and artists usually create their most significant work early in their career. Perhaps I never warmed to Strand's poetry in the past because I never had the chance to read enough of the early poems. Even his book-length poem "The Dark Harbor" didn't convince me nor his Pulitzer-winning collection "Blizzard of One". Could never figure out why he was named Poet Laureate. This New Selected Poems by Mark Strand arrives twenty-five years after his last Selected and explains everything. It is a most impressive introduction to a significant poet. The poems from the early books are typically dark and mysterious; they breathe a natural surrealism that is as different from Lorca's manner as the New World is from the Old. And this mystery is couched in short lyrics composed of short lines packed with powerful Anglo-Saxon nouns and verbs. Half-rhymes and assonance add welcome music to the atmosphere of each poem. Strand's mastery of informal formality is made to seem deceptively easy but, as any experienced poet knows, is almost impossible to teach in a poetry workshop. Here in its entirety is "The Prediction", a great poem from his third book (1970):

That night the moon drifted over the pond,
turning the water to milk, and under
the boughs of the trees, the blue trees,
a young woman walked, and for an instant

the future came to her:
rain falling on her husband's grave, rain falling
on the lawns of her children, her own mouth
filling with cold air, strangers moving into her house,

a man in her room writing a poem, the moon drifting into it,
a woman strolling under its trees, thinking of death,
thinking of him thinking of her, and the wind rising
and taking the moon and leaving the paper dark.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Pure magic; it makes me want to break every pencil and pen in my house. There are plenty of other poems in Strand's Selected of this quality; they have that quick inevitable click that Dickinson has. Enough said.
... Read more

Product Description
Recent U.S. poet laureate Mark Strand examines the work of frequently misunderstood American painter Edward Hopper, whose enigmatic paintings--of gas stations, storefronts, cafeterias, and hotel rooms--number among the most powerful of our time. Featured in a series of upcoming museum lectures. Illustrations throughout. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Poets Ruminations
This is not a book for anyone seeking information on life and/or the works of the great Americn painter, Edward Hopper. Pictures are all in black and white, while few facts about his life ae given.
This is a book solely for the person sufficiently familiar with the artists work to appreciate this outstanding poets reflections on the impact of some of his paintings and some fearures in the picture which produce those effects.
Most will find little meat for thought here. Most will find these minimal responses unsatisfying. Those who know the poetry of this Pulitzer prize winning Poet Laureate of The United state will gain some insight into the workings of his poetic perspective when turned on the subject of Hopper's painting.
Others who want to tune in to a poetic sensibility writing prose may find it gratifying.
It is a very quick read with each selection taking no more than a few minutes to read although those who want to apply Strand's conceptions to their own appraisal of these works will find much more to chew over.

Refreshing, concise, insightful
Just because the previous reviewer didn't get what he expected from this volume doesn't mean it isn't brilliant in its own right.From an outsider's perspective (I am not an art critic, but a literary scholar), I found Mark Strand's insights into Hopper's work to be refreshing and insightful, the first collection of art criticism I have read that speaks thoughtfully and intelligently to its readership without making the assumption that the reader already has the thoughts and inclinations of the critic him or herself.Instead, this is a book that teaches, and I am grateful for it!

Strand Leaves The Reader Stranded
I found this thin volumen incredibly inadequate, as it barely (if at all) mentions some of Hoppers most important themes such as silence, voyeurism, and loneliness.Strand spends approximately two poorly developed paragraphs on a number of paintings, often doing nothing more than describing them with bland geometric terms and giving little-or no-insight.I'm in the process of doing a six month research and writing project on Hopper, I found this to be the worst of all my resources.

Additionlly, the black and white reproductions are tiny and worthless.The book is of little value in any capacity, which is saying something considering my love for Hopper and art history analysis and evaluation.In fact, in the Preface, Strand acknowledges that this volume flies in the face of previous scholars.He must have meant he was going against quality analysis with support, because his book says nothing.There is no point whatsoever!Quite frustrating.

I would recommend J.A. Ward's American Silences instead. ... Read more

Product Description
In this compilation of older and newer poems, Strand demonstrates his mastery of cadence and narrative style. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Poems that leave you changed from when you began them
Mark Strand is an excellent contemporary poet.Some poems leave the reader smiling, such as in "The New Poetry Handbook."An excerpt reads, "If a man publicly denounces poetry, / his shoes will fill with urine."Even within this one poem, the reader changes from a laugh to a stunned silence, from the last line in the poem, "If a man finishes a poem, / he shall bathe in the blank wake of his passion / and be kissed by white paper."

Strand uses language to purely, succintly, metaphorically, lyrically, and beautifully describe every day life:marriage, writing, love, home, and death.

BUY THIS BOOK!

overrated?
I know a lot of people who love Mark Strand, & I know he has done a lot of work for poetry, but he really doesn't seem to me like he's a special poet, hype aside.I read a lot of poems in this book waiting for them to go somewhere, for Strand to find inspiration, but it never happened.The poems have a foot nailed to the ground & like it that way, so they can just sit there while other things do stuff.There are a few good poems, but anyone who writes a lot of poems writes a few that are good.If this is the kind of writing you want, maybe you would appreciate this guy, but there are so many poets of comparable aesthetic who do it so much better.

Ethereal
strand's poetry has a surrealistic, ethereal feel to it. while you won't find many great poems here (but do read "The Tunnel"), you will find a lot of interesting, solid poems that make it a worthy collection to read.

Strand's a painter of words
Mark Strand's poetry speaks volumes even in this thin-ish book of selected poems. It's my favorite of poetry books by living English-speaking writers. His early work reflects influences from Latin Surrealists like Octavio Paz. He moves later to the personal...autobiographical, beautiful elegies, and words on that basic thread that ties together the human experience...love. But enough of the pretentious crap on poetry that exists out there already in useless spades, on to the meat and bone of the matter, the poet's words. You be the judge. Here are some of my more favorite lines: "Tonight as it gets cold tell yourself what you know which is nothing but the tune your bones play as you keep going." from "Lines for Winter" "She slept without the usual concerns, the troubling dreams--the pets moving through the museum, the carved monsters, the candles giving themselves up to darkness. She slept without caring what she looked like, without considering the woman who would come or the men who would leave or the mirrors or the basin of cold water." from "She" "Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry...She does not understand. When I get on my knees and lick her hand, she screams. I am a new man. I snarl at her and bark. I romp with joy in the bookish dark." from "Eating Poetry" and finally "The meek are hauling their skins into heaven. The hopeless are suffering the cold with those who have nothing to hide...There are stones in the sea no one has seen. There is a shore and people are waiting. And nothing comes back. Because it is over. Because there is silence instead of a name. Because it is winter and the new year." from "Elegy for my Father"

Amazing...
This collection proves Mark Strand to be one of the most amazing, talentedcontemporary poets. Easy for a poetry beginner to appreciate andunderstand, yet complex enough for the biggest poetry buff to love, thisbook made me think over and over again about the thoughts Strand soelegantly examines. I had the luck to be able to see Strand read, and hiswit and grace impressed me almost as much as his work does.If you areinterested in reading contemporary poetry, or already love the likes ofSimic, Tate, Wright, Ashbery, etc, pick up this book and let Stand's magictake you away. ... Read more

Product Description
Strand's poems occupy a place that exists between abstraction and the sensuous particulars of experience. It is a place created by a voice that moves with unerring ease between the commonplace and the sublime. The poems are filled with "the weather of leavetaking," but they are also unexpectedly funny. The erasure of self and the depredations of time are seen as sources of sorrow, but also as grounds for celebration. This is one of the difficult truths these poems dramatize with stoicism and wit. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Blizzard of One is an extraordinary book--the summation of the work of a lifetime by one of our very few true masters of the art of poetry.Amazon.com Review
Mark Strand's Blizzard of One features a collage of his own devisingon the cover: an expanse of red and blue geometric planes, broken up by theappearance of an ice floe on the imaginary horizon. The image invites theviewer to fill up the surrounding emptiness. So too does the white spacesurrounding Strand's taut, spare, metaphysical verse. The quest for thesingle lyric's integrity and wholeness sets Strand apart from those poetsfor whom the provisional is everything. And this is an artist who nevershies away from the absolute: indeed, he manages to make each poem in thebook recapitulate the beginning and the end.

There is a terrible atmosphere of finality and doom to these poems. In twosplendid villanelles, for example, Strand pays homage to De Chirico, and the tension oflines like these brings with it a strange shiver of pleasure:

Boredom sets in first, and then despair.
One tries to brush it off.It only grows.
Something about the silence of the square.

Something is wrong; something about the air,
Its color; about the light, the way it glows.
Boredom sets in first, and then despair.

Customer Reviews (15)

Transcendent. Moving. Luminous.
I can read and re-read this book of poetry any number of times and I hope to do just that.

Like the snowflake in the title poem ("A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room.."), these poems enter your consciousness lightly but stay there, their weight leaving you moved and you, having read them, are now richer for having lived through the experience.

I liked many of the poems in this collection but want to specially call out a few that are amongst the best of Strand that I have read - 'The Next Time', 'A Suite of Appearances', 'What it was', 'Some Last Words' and the poem celebrating the Russian-American poet: 'In Memory of Joseph Brodsky':

"What remains of the self
unwinds into a vanishing light, and thins like dust, and heads
to a place where knowing and nothing pass into each other,
and through...

...

What remains of the self unwinds and unwinds, for none
Of the boundaries holds - neither the shapeless one between us,
Nor the one that falls between your body and your voice....

...

What remains of the self unwinds
Beyond us, for whom time is only a measure of meanwhile
And the future no more than et cetera et cetera ... but fast and
forever."

With lines like the above and also "how could I not be only myself, this dream of flesh, from moment to moment?" (Old Man Leaves Party), he writes about the self (and the sense of loss that negates this self) in ways that no other modern poet! Speaking of loss, read some of these excerpted lines from his various poems. What acelebration of life!

"Take time off before the world out there burns up. Life should be more than the body's weight working itself from room to room..."

"Living like this, hoping to revise what has been false or rendered unreadable is not what we wanted..."

"What we desire, more than a season or weather, is the comfort of being strangers, at least to ourselves.."

"There is no end to what we can learn. The book out there tells us as much, and was never written with us in mind..."

"Although I love the past, the dark of it, the weight of it teaching us nothing, the loss of it, the all of it asking for nothing.."

"The dust of a passion, the dark crumble of images down the page are all that remain..."

And into the close and mirrored catocombs of sleep we'll fall, and there in the faded light discover the bones, the dust, the bitter remains of someone who might have been / Had we not taken his place."

"Perfection is out of the question for people like us, so why plug away at the same old self.."-

And last but not least, these amazing lines from The Next Time ([...])

"Time slips by; our sorrows do not turn into poems,
And what is invisible stays that way. Desire has fled,

Leaving only a trace of perfume in its wake,
And so many people we loved have gone,

And no voice comes from outer space, from the folds
Of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this

Is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew
How long the ruins would last we would never complain."

There is much more to savor ... but I'll leave you with these lines from the poem, 'The Great Poet Returns'

"Tell me, you people out there, what is poetry anyway?
Can anyone die without even a little?"

Well....certainly not without a dose of Strand's poetry!

P.S. What a shame! A Pulitzer Prize winning book of amazing AND accessible poems but only 14 reviews (this being the 15th) of the book on Amazon! So much drivel out there...but treasures such as this go unappreciated!

Another Blizzard of One
A Blizzard of One is a collection of poems by Mark Strand, former Poet Laureate of the United States.As an architect and painter, I had enjoyed his poem "In a Field" and ordered this book to read some of his other work.His work is very understandable but still has a lot of depth--somewhat like Robert Frost.Each poem helps you find meaning in seemingly ordinary events.

Praise for Blizzard of One
Blizzard of One is an enjoyable collection of poems. Mark Strand writes about daily life which makes his poetryrelatable to everyone. Although simple, Strand's poems can be interpreted many different ways. A witty tone underlies his beliefs about life and death. I highly recommend Blizzard of One.

Blizzard of One
Blizzard of One is a surprisingly witty, smart collection of poems. This is the first collection of poems I have read by Mr. Strand and I was delighted with the book. The poems approach everyday topics, and pushes past the ordinary. Blizzard of One draws on everyone's fears of death and suggests that death is not what is to be feared, not living life is. Blizzard of One is a wonderful collection and I would recommend it to all with even a slight interest in poetry.

Blizzard of one
This is a very moving book to read. It is certainly one worth reading several times, due to the fact that every time you read it, you pick up on something you may have missed before. ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of poems by 1991's Poet Laureate of the United States and a MacArthur Fellow includes a variety of poems and prose poems ranging from high oracular to low comic. Reprint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Desert Isle
I gave this book the desert isle test; would I want it on a desert island if my library were limited to 100 American poetry books from 1990 and since. The answer is yes, this is Strand's best, it honors beauty as only the most refined aesthete could do. In these pages you will find Strand's quivalents [my equivocal way of saying `equivalents'] to "Ode on Melancholy" and Stevens's "Sunday Morning" and "Comedian as the Letter C." In a word, this is an elegant volume, as elegant as it is romantic.

A solid collection
At the very least, Mark Strand is one of the most readable poets around.He's neither too obscure nor too obvious, and if his example were more widely followed then contemporary poetry might find a sizable audience.The poem "The Continuous Life" says everything that needs sayingabout the joys, hopes, fears, tensions, and emptiness of middle-classexistence--or perhaps just plain human existence--and note how well thecascading rhythm matches its theme.It reminded me of James Salter's novel"Light Years," but Strand manages to compress his vision into amere 28 lines.As an observer of the human comedy, he's quiteperceptive.

My only major complaint with this volume is the somewhatrepetitive subject matter--there is too much musing about the Nature ofArt, too many descriptions of verdant scenery.Considering this was hisfirst volume of original poetry in at least 10 years, we could havereasonably expected a little more variety.Or perhaps I'm being churlish. Don't let me discourage you:read this book.

one of the Greatest living poets
You can count the great american poets who are writing today ona thumbless hand with mark strand as the palm. The poem "The Continuous Life" has been refered to as the perfect poem and I've asked mygrandchildren to read the final poem in the volume "The End" atmy graveside. We need poetry as a people and as individuals andif youhave the nature to hear and feel it,poetry is the only truth there is.

Musical, highly visual, and spirititually longing poetry
I highly recommend these poems!Experts will have their reasons for loving Strand.As for myself, I find them accessible, moving, musical, visual, and just flat out great to read.Forget "what theymean," this guy can write. But then, I also find them edifying in thesame way that Ecclesiastes is edifying.Good stuff. ... Read more

Product Description
This eleventh collection by Mark Strand is a toast to life’s transience and abiding beauty.He begins with a group of light but haunting fables, populated by figures like the King, a tiny creature in ermine who has lost his desire to rule, and by the poet’s own alter ego, who recounts the fetching mystery of the title poem: “I sat on the porch having a smoke / when out of the blue a man and a camel / happened by.” The poet has Arctic adventures and encounters with the bearded figure of Death; in his controlled tone, he creates his bold visions and shows us, like a magician, how they vanish in a blink. Gradually, his fancies give way to powerful scenes of loss, as in “The Mirror,” where the face of a beautiful woman stares past him

into a place I could only imagine . . .
as if just then I were stepping
from the depths of the mirror
into that white room, breathless and eager,
only to discover too late
that she is not there.

Man and Camel concludes with a small masterpiece of meditations crafted around the Seven Last Words of Christ. Here, this secular poet finds resonance in the bedrock of Christ’s language, the actual words that have governed so many generations of thought and belief. As always with Mark Strand, the discovery of meaning in the sound of language itself is an act of faith that enlightens us and carries us beyond the bounds of the rational.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Some Real Jewels
Mr. Strand writes poems that are brief and books that are brief.What Mr. Strand lacks in length, however, he makes up for in power."A Piece of the Storm," an eleven line work from his last collection, Blizzard of One, is one of the best poems of the last 10 years.I was hoping to find something of that level in this collection and I did.

"2002" is another top tier poem.It is a meditation on death but with a twist.It begins: "I am not thinking of Death, but Death is thinking of me./He leans back in his chair, rubs his hands, strokes/his beard, and says, `I'm thinking of Strand...'".Normally, I find a poet using his own name in a poem incredibly narcissistic, but here it gives grounding to a poem of fantasy.Plus, it seems to invite the reader to substitute their own name.From there, the poem follows Death's thoughts until it reaches this chilling closing: "...O let it be soon.Let it be soon."I love it.

As is often the case, even with poets I enjoy, the rest of the book is uneven.There are some other jewels here, including "Mother and Son" and "Poem After the Seven Last Words," a sequence of stanzas built around the last words of Christ on the Cross.What I like about this poem is how there is a subtlety and universality about it.Still, some of the poems are quite poor, including "2032," the companion to "2002."But I am will to work my way through some poems I don't like to find something like "2002."

Simplicity but Strong
This was my first experience reading a full collection by Mark Strand but I am very impressed, which shouldn't be surprising giving the awards and honors that Strand has received.

To me, this collection is full of poems that are the narrator trying to find his place in the world. There are many poems that look into what it is to be a writer, but that is not the only place in the world that the narrator is looking for.

What I note the most in these poems, as a poet, is the great use of dialogue and strong use of the actual line.

This collection could have a wide audience and hope many will consider reading it!.

Mark Strand's reflections always make you think
This is the eleventh poetry collection by Mark Strand and provides light masterpieces of spiritual meditations and social conditions. Poems are all free verse and vary immensely in theme and approach - but all are hard-hitting comments: "Something was wrong/screams could be heard/in the morning dark/it was cold." Mark Strand's reflections always make you think: MAN AND CAMEL is no exception.

Well Written and Powerful Poetry
Strand is a magnificent poet.His ideas and images are brilliant and the arrangement of the poems makes one flow into the other and it is impossible to stop reading.Tight and concise, lyrical and thought provoking, interesting and entertaining.He won a well-deserved Pulitzer a few years ago, and these poems are additional evidence as to why.

Favorites include "Black Sea," "Marsyas," "Mother and Son," and "Mirror."

Falling in
The one quality that I haven't seen mentioned about this book yet is that as a reader it is as easy as possible to fall into the book from the first poem. I was sitting in the back of a bookstore while my daughter played with some toys there. From the first line of the first poem I was pulled in. I didn't even think about stopping. I tried the second poem. Same thing. And the third. I was thirty pages in before I noticed that we were late for dinner.

Does it matter that the poetry is immediately engaging? Yes. Immediate engagement is a fantastic first step. I've only read those thirty pages or so once, but my guess is that as I go back to them they will become more interesting, not less.

I'm reminded, in reading this, of "Eating Poetry" which is what I want to do with this book, the way I would dive into a slice of New York pizza or a perfectly cooked cheeseburger. Delicious. ... Read more

Product Description
The last century's 100 most enduring poems, selected and introduced by former Poet Laureate Mark Strand.

Accounting for the great range of style and content with which poets such as W. H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Federico García Lorca, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Butler Yeats, Pablo Neruda, and Jorge Luis Borges responded to the changes and challenges of the twentieth century, 100 Great Poems of the Twentieth Century is intended as both a unique compendium for the already well-versed and as an engaging introduction for those new to the expansive world of poetry. Alan Ginsberg's struggle—"What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman....In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!"—is echoed by other remarkable poets in this international collection of exciting and moving poems that are alike not in their length or for their status as seminal texts but because they are impossible to forget. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

MY POETRY REVIEW
almost all of the poems in this collection could have been written in "paragraph", or essay form. it seems that the writers of these poems had some sort of passion about the subjects which they chose to write about, and that is good. but i was constantly annoyed that they decided to write about their thoughts in the form of a poem. It seemed that this genre of writing simply stunted their passions and ideas - as if they were more concerned about construing their thoughts in the poem format, and yet didn't quite know how to do that. the result is a collection of stifled works that do not read particularly well as poems, and yet seem to cry out for the full freedom of exspression that an essay would have allowed. NOT EVERYONE IS A POET - AND THAT IS OKAY. GOT IT ? i believe that a poem is a brilliant arrangement of words about a writers ideas that serve to inspire and immerse the reader in the passion of the thoughts via this - again - "brilliant arrangement of words " , in the style we call the poem. *** another comment i have about this book is the general theme that mark strand seems to have chosen when considering what works to allow in this book -hispersonal selection of what he considers the " great poems of the twentieth century". the common thread linking most of the poems collected in this volume is in fact the subject of regret that the poets all seem to have about ....who knows what. most of them ramble remorsefully about nothing imparticular - and in, again, a very amateurish "poetry" style . i think that a poem should contain some form of enlightenment, and should be written cleverly enough to get the reader to enjoy the work; feel inspired, somehow. very few poems in this collection meet the criteria . i note that one of the reviewers on this page has copied some lines from a few ofthepoems in the book that wereabout something concrete that had actually happened to the poem writers, and had impacted them enough to compell themto write of it. however, again, it is safe to say that practically all of the other ninety-nineworks in this book are meandering , dissconnected, and incomplete thoughts that these "poets" have clearly tried in vain to squeeze into the "poem" outfit. someone should tell themthat they would learn more - and be able to share more with their readers - if they would simply write out their thoughts as essays. i think that there are few poets in the world, and in my opinion this collection does not contain the works of hardly a one of them. i must say, also, that the reviewer who quotes from some of the poems in this book in her review really had to dig - trust me - to come up with even afew tatters of worthwhile reading from the material offered. oh well, maybe her review got this book some readers .

Fine Anthology
As Strand states in this introduction, this book presents a 100 great poems of the 20th century, not the 100 great poems of the 20th century.The selection naturally reflects Strand's personal but excellent taste. He has caste a wide net, including poets from several European countries, Latin America, Turkey, and Israel, as well as a generous selection of American poets.Some very famous poems are presented but also some less known but worthy poems by famous poets.Strand has also tried to balance the nature of the poems, including both humourous and serious works, hence the inclusion of a poem by Ogden Nash and a relatively lighthearted poem by the Spanish poet Alberti.Some readers may be disappointed by the exclusion of some of their favorite poems.I, for example, would have chosen different poems by William Carlos Williams, Yeats, and Wallace Stevens, but Strand has certainly chosen well.Perhaps because Strand is himself an accomplished poet, I think some poems have been selected on the basis of what might be called technical merit, demonstrations of how to achieve a variety of effects via poetic efforts.
The best part of this anthology, like all good anthologies, is encountering important but unfamiliar works.This anthology features a number of powerful works probably unknown to most of the reading public in this country.Reading Thom Gunn's Lament or the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet's Things I Didn't Know I Loved is worth the price of the book.

A remarkable collection
Poet Laureate Mark Strand has selected well-known voices, as well as the more obscure poets, "a carefully chosen sampler juxtaposing long and short form, experimental and traditional style, expected and surprising choices." These are the voices of the 2oth century, an international collection, half from outside of the United States, some translated from other languages, a mix of humor and drama, designed for those who love poetry and those who are just discovering the beauty of this form. A distinction: these are not the hundred great poems of the century, but a hundred poems, surely enough to whet any appetite, a kaleidoscope of images as viewed by individuals, representing North and South America and Europe, the North American poets limited to those born after 1927.

The voice of war rings loud, the memory of loss still fresh and wounding, the world scarred by conflict, the horrors endured:

"Up there in the Aleutians
they are knocking the gold
teeth out of the dead Japanese"

and...

"You know by now there
isn't much to live for
except to spite Hitler-
The war is so lurid
that everything else is dull."
(Ruth Stone, "That Winter")

For those who live day to day in managed care, white-sheathed nurses watching, evening brings quiet, one more passing of a burdened day:

"It is the hour of the complicated knitting on the safe bone needles
of the games of anagram and bridge;
The deadly game of chess; the book held up like a mask."
(Louise Bogan, "Evening in the Sanitarium")


There are musings of death, choices made and wisdom gleaned in flashes, images that strike like lightning, illuminating:

"I am bound by my own thirty-year-old
decision: who drinks the wine
Should take the dregs; even in the bitter lees and sediment
New discovery may lie. The deer in that beautiful place lay down
their bones: I must wear mine."
(Robinson Jeffers, "The Deer Lay Down Their Bones")

Richard Wright's "I Have Seen Black Hands" calls a nation to acknowledge the struggle, the great anguish of bent backs, hard work and irreconcilable loss:

"And the black hands strained and clawed and struggled in vain at
the noose that tightened about the black throat,
And the black hands waved and beat fearfully at the tall flames that
cooked and charred the black flesh...

And some day- and it is only this which sustains me-
Someday there shall be millions and millions of them,
On some red day in a burst of fists on a new horizon!"

Through the passage of the century, memories cling, fragments of the past, forgotten until discovered in the bottom of a drawer, or glimpsed in a photograph:

"No it was not because it was too far
you failed to visit me that day or night.
From year to year it grows in us until it takes hold
I understood it as you did: indifference."
(Czeslaw Milosz, "Elegy for N.N.")

Here are the words of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, W.H. Auden, Jorge Luis Borges, Hart Crane, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Michaux, Ranier Maria Rilke, Theodore Roethke and Dylan Thomas, to name a few. With biographies and index, this volume reflects a century, events that changed the face of the globe, coexisting with intimate moments and small solitudes, all fragments of the whole, food for the soul, carefully selected, one hundred voices ringing. Luan Gaines/2005. ... Read more

Product Description
A new collection of poetry by the author of The Continuous Life presents interconnected poems that reflect a wide range of moods and changes of tone. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

great poem, great poet
Mark strand, one of the better living poets in America delivers with a great, longer work set around growing older. It isaccessable and interesting, which is about all you can ask for out of a modern volume ofpoetry. More then a few of these poems will rattle around in your head,long after you have put the book down. ... Read more

Product Description
Two beloved and esteemed poets have collaborated on this intimate and useful anthology illuminating the history, practice, and wonder of our most elusive art. Intended for all those who love poetry, including teachers, readers, writers, and students, The Making of a Poem will be especially valued by those who feel that an understanding of form—sonnet, ballad, villanelle, sestina, etc.—would enhance their appreciation of poetry, but are daunted by the terms, the names, and the histories of various poetic forms. This anthology draws the reader in, by example and explanation, to the excitement and entertainment of these forms. It explains their origins, traces their development, and shows examples from the past and present. In a feature called "The form at a glance" the reader can try his or her own hand writing a particular form. Included are essays by each of the editors describing their own personal journeys toward a form for their poetic voice. Above all, this anthology shows that poetic form is a continuing adventure. Contemporary poets can be seen here trying out the same forms that poets used hundreds of years ago, but in the new circumstances of a complicated modern world. In this way poetic form is illustrated not as a series of rules, but as a passionate conversation in which every reader of poetry can become involved. Amazon.com Review
The Making of a Poem is among the best how-to-read-poetry titles. Edited by two of our greatest living poets, one Irish and female, the other American and male, it is both an exploration of poetic forms and an anthology. Eavan Boland and Mark Strand each offer an introduction and then give us a series of chapters devoted to particular verse forms--the sonnet, the ballad, the sestina, the villanelle, blank verse, the stanza--as well as a long section devoted to what they somewhat vaguely call shaping forms. This refers to poetic structures established not by a specific rhyme and/or metrical pattern but by content: the elegy, for example, or the pastoral or ode. The book then concludes with a section on open forms. Each chapter is conveniently subdivided, each topic simply defined: a single page gives "The Ballad at a Glance" (or, for that matter, the pantoum) as a quick overview of the form's structure. A page or two on the history of the form follows, along with a brief comment on "the contemporary context." Then a chronological anthology of poems demonstrates the particular form. In the sonnet's case, for instance, we are treated to 23 brilliantly chosen examples--everything from Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" to Seamus Heaney's "The Haw Lantern" to Mary Jo Salter's playful "Half a Double Sonnet." The section then concludes with another brief analysis of one example. In this spot, the villanelle features Elizabeth Bishop's classic heartbreaker, "One Art," and blank verse gives us far too brief a take on Robert Frost's tantalizing "Directive." Itself worth the price of admission, the poem begins:

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simply by the loss
of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more than a house
Upon a farm that is no more than a farm
And in a town that is no more than a town.

Customer Reviews (28)

good introduction to poetry forms
Understanding poetry forms is an important place for the beginning poet to start.This book is easy and informative for that process

Cookbook of Poetic Forms
Of all the anthology's of Poetic Forms, this is the best at showing the precise differences between each poetic form. Each poetic form has an "At a Glance" section which provides the exact differences, sort of cookbook style. Other books in this category are: Handbook of Poetic Form (excellent for it's breadth), How to be Well Versed, Rhyme's Reason.

Made My Life Easier
Wish I had this book years ago. Perfectly arranged by type of poem with helpful "At a Glace" pages that quickly explains the form of the poem. For instance, "The Vinanelle at a Glance" lists six basics that form the Villanelle. This book is invaluable for a student or a lover of poetic form. It is complete with classic and contemporary poems. Of course, the book is a Norton Anthology - who always publish quality books.

The Making of a Poem purchase
The product arrived in perfect condition within a matter of days. I would purchase from here again.

Fascinating
Being fairly new to poetry, I purchased this book as an introduction to poetic forms, and it does not disappoint. The authors have cultivated a fantastic guide to many of the more popular forms of the modern era, and a few less popular forms. I found the chapters on the Villanelle and on Blank Verse to alone be worth the minimal price tag. The descriptions are terse but wholly concise. The choices the authors made for examples are so perfect that this book could work simply as an anthology of great poems. It is not, though, an all-around introduction to poetry, meter is barely touched upon, and some lesser forms are not given mention, but as books on important poetic forms go, I could hardly recommend another. ... Read more

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From the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, a brilliant and witty collection of writings on the art and nature of poetry -- a master class both entertaining and provocative.

The pieces have a broad range and many levels. In one, we sit with the teenage Mark Strand while he reads for the first time a poem that truly amazes him: "You, Andrew Marvell" by Archibald MacLeish, in which night sweeps in an unstoppable but exhilarating circle around the earth toward the speaker standing at noon. The essay goes on to explicate the poem, but it also evokes, through its form and content, the poem's meaning -- time's circular passage -- with the young Strand first happening upon the poem, the older Strand seeing into it differently, but still amazed.

Among the other subjects Strand explores: the relationship between photographs and poems, the eternal nature of the lyric, the contemporary use of old forms, four American views of Parnassus, and an alphabet of poetic influences.

We visit as well Strandian parallel universes, whose absurdity illuminates the lack of a vital discussion of poetry in our culture at large: Borges drops in on a man taking a bath, perches on the edge of the tub, and discusses translation; a president explains in his farewell address why he reads Chekhov to his cabinet.

Throughout The Weather of Words, Mark Strand explores the crucial job of poets and their readers, who together joyfully attempt the impossible -- to understand through language that which lies beyond words.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Book not as great I had hoped.
This book was highly recommended to me, but I thought it was pretty low-level, eclectic, impressionistic, juvenile, an over-all dissappointing. If you're looking for something like Aristotle's Poetics, you will be dissappointed too. If you like a patchwork quilt of emotive, faux elitery, then you will find your reflection in this book.

Doubly Illuminating
Though Strand has been widely regarded as a notable poet for over thirty years, this book--which comes hot on the heels of his Pulitzer Prize in poetry--is his first collection of essays.Actually, there are other kindsof prose here as well, including two prose poems on the topics oftranslation and narrative poetry (reprinted from his 1990 book THECONTINUOUS LIFE) and a story revolving around the conflicts between publiclife and poetic sensibility.All three are humorous, as are several of theessays:Strand has always oscillated between pure gravitas and a kind ofserious humor.Like the best such collections, THE WEATHER OF WORDS notonly illuminates Strand's own poetic practice, but also offers insightsinto poetry that readers unfamiliar with his work will find valuable.Anexample is his discussion of the villanelle form--how it turns out to bethe "safest" kind of poem in which to talk about loss.Particular standouts here are "A Poet's Alphabet," which opensthe book, and Strand's introduction to THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 1991.

absolutely spectacular
this book is a great picture of poetry by one of america's best living poets. funny, touching, and above all, poetic, strand's new book is definitely worthwhile to anyone interested in poetry.

Ho-Hum
Very superficial: a good book if you like superficiality. ... Read more

Product Description
Paul Strand was more than a great artist: he discovered that photography had the potential to be the most dynamic medium of the twentieth century. Purity, elegance, and passion are the hallmarks of Strand's imagery. This inaugural volume of Aperture's Masters of Photography series presents forty-one of Strand's greatest photographs, drawn from a career that spanned six decades.Included are his earliest experimental efforts, created from 1915 to 1917, which Alfred Stieglitz declared had begun to redefine the medium. Subsequent photographs reveal the artist's impeccable vision in locales as diverse as New England and the Outer Hebrides, France, and Ghana. During Strand's last years, he concentrated on still lifes and the poignant beauty of his own garden at Orgeval, France.In an introductory essay, Mark Haworth-Booth, Curator of Photography at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, provides an overview of the artist's life and his enduring contribution to photography.Hardcover, 8 x 8 in./96 pgs ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Decent little book
This collection is a nice, compact, and inexpensive glipse at a range of Paul Strand's photographs from throughout his long 60 year career.I would have prefered the book to be a little larger to allow for bigger pictures.The print quality is decent.

In the Eyes of the Beholder
as a person who has been close with the Strand family for a long time, i have to say that out of personal relations and out of knowing the full potential for paul and his family, this book is amazing.you have to remember that there is a face and a mind behind this camera, and the amazing talent that people must have in the first place to even be able to spot beauty in the everyday things.if you can take the time to look at the power of these photographs as a human being with a powerfully capable mind and not as a critic, prone to hang on every little detail instead of fully trying to enjoy the pieces in question, i can garauntee that you will be completely satisfied with this collection.in my mind it will always be stunning.

A Glimpse of Paul Strand
This book presents a small collection of Mr. Strand's images, all titled and dated, and offers a glimpse of the entire span of his career. We are given a sense of his work through four of the major times and places duringhis life: his photographic apprenticeship in New York during the late1910's, a sampling of his work done under commission in Mexico, his wellknown work in New England, and finally, images taken after his emigrationto France, in 1950.A brief biography precedes the photographs thatfollow, and we are left to consider the images free from further didacticcomment.

At first sight, one senses immediately the charm this man mighthave possessed in his relationships with both himself and those people andthings surrounding his life. This sense is borne out in the wry humor of"Town Hall", with its off kilter framing, which we instantlyrecognize as Paul Strand. Ironically, a closer study of his personal lifeindicates Mr. Strand could be a difficult man. The well-known "WallStreet", an earlier piece of darkly shadowed monstrous windowsoverpowering passers by, is as close to the foggy pictorialist sense Strandwill get, and the rest of the images show him breaking away from thatstyle, and moving head first into the previsualized and almost straightphotographic style that he was to help break ground for.

In thiscollection, several of the photographs stand out; but many seem ratherinnocuous, specifically the portraits of those he knew personally, andthose he didn't - none seem to capture the viewers imagination like thoseof Mr. Strands' contemporaries might, Edward Weston for one. Instead, theyseem unimaginative and emotionless. Furthermore, it doesn't help that,lacking that content, it may be that his reputation as an innovativetechnician in the darkroomgoes unnoticed here, seeing these images onlyon the page (in small 7 inch by 6 inch reprint).

On the other hand, weare shownsome photographs which showhow powerful a view of quietsolitude can be. Of particular note,"Tir a'Mhurain" stands alone.A wide view of the silence surrounding three horses watering in the bay,and in the very left foreground, they are being watched from far above by alone white horse. The leading of the three animals has turned its manetoward, and is eyeing the lone horse. The silvery water of the bay reflectsthe stand ofhorses, and more strongly, that of an immense and cloudedsky, suggesting a powerful solemnity. Faintly, in mid-ground, woodbuildings of a fishing village are left powerless in front of only a smallmountain range. Taken in 1954, an American living in France (but not ableto speak the language), Mr. Strand might have felt himself the lone horse.The obtrusive sky begging for silence. The artist contemplating his subjectfrom afar.

"Driveway" was taken late in his life (in fact,three years prior to his death) where he lived in France. This poetic viewleads us through an overgrowth, tunnel-like, of bare tree limbs andbranches.Beneath this dark surrounding ofhibernating growth,twoparallelwhite cobblestone paths. Our eyes search the dark, shadowedbackground to where we are being lead; almost imperceptible, at the end ofthe driveway, we make out a decrepit structure: a country cottage,seemingly empty and abandoned. One cannot help but feel the author'sprobable recognition of the path of his own life, and the awful truth oflife: of autumn, the oncoming winter, the drawing to a close, and of cominghome to a place unknown.

In this collection, these are his strongestimages, these landscapes. - whether "Fox River",from hisacclaimed book "Time in New England", or the handful of New Yorkcityscapes, or the countrylandscapes and village life scenes, such as"Marketplace", taken in Italy. Robert Adams has suggested thatMr. Strands work went into decline following his emigration to France in1950 (1).In actuality, it is these images we wish for more of. Mr.Strand's capacity was not limited by time and place, but by subject andcontent. Seeing the images borne from his emigrated life, one is leftwanting less of his still life's and portraits, and more of what showed amore genuine side of Mr. Strand through symbolic form. Not the modernistmachine pictures like "Oil Refinery", or "Akeley MotionPicture Camera", but more of "Landscape, Sicily, Italy",with its bare, white birch trees having cloistered the villager's in theirquiet homes.

However, in this book, as a simple compendium of Mr.Strand's oeuvre, the viewer is at least left with a closer understanding ofa part of what this celebrated photographer was seeing throughout thevaried stages and places, both known and foreign, of his life.

1. Adams,Robert Why People Photograph, Aperture Press, 1994. pg. 85 ... Read more

Product Description
Mark Strand is the author of nine books of poems, including Blizzard of One, winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize. He was the Poet Laureate of the United States in 1990, and currently teaches at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He lives in Chicago.Amazon.com Review
Mark Strand is one of our finest contemporary American poets. The republication of The Story of Our Lives, with The Monument and The Late Hour, a collection of three out-of-print works written in the 1970s, is a testament to Strand's versatility and intellect. The Story of Our Lives is primarily an evocative lament for the author's deceased father, mulling over the questions and frustrations presented when someone close dies, as showcased in the deeply moving "Elegy for My Father": "It is over and nobody knows you." The second book, The Monument, could loosely be described as a series of prose poems utilizing lines from other works, such as those of Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman, and Friedrich Nietzsche, as Strand presents an amusingly irreverent jab at the seriousness with which many poets (including himself) take themselves and their aspirations of having their works achieve immortality. The last book, The Late Hour, exhibits Strand's characteristic dreamlike quality--images have a sparse and haunting beauty about them, and patterns of quiet thought are reworked in a still, dark night. It's as if, while peering into that dark, one catches a glimpse of something in the periphery, and the residue of that brief image is what Strand explores--the space between what is and isn't there, between light and dark. Also, a prescient recitation of our aspirations of self-understanding and self-improvement can be found here, as in "Lines for Winter": "tell yourself / in that final flowing of cold through your limbs / that you love what you are." This collection serves as a welcome reintroduction to Mark Strand's earlier works. --Michael Ferch ... Read more

Product Description
The poems of Mark Strand-1999 Pulitzer-Prize winning poet as well as respected painter-occupy a space between abstraction and the sensuous particulars of experience. One of the true contemporary masters of the art and craft of poetry, his voice moves with perfect ease between the sublime and the commonplace. His most recent book, Chicken, Shadow, Moon & More, testifies not only to his poetic gifts but to his artistic talents as well-the poems are accompanied by facing illustrations, in two-color throughout. When Mark Strand was asked to describe Chicken, Shadow, Moon & More, he replied: "This book is composed of lists. Each list is built upon the repeated use of a single word. Each can be read in part or in its entirety. Each has a different tone, a different feel. Some of the lists seem close to being poetry, others closer to being prose. Sometimes sense matters, sometimes it doesn't. These lists are as easy to read upon falling asleep as they are upon waking." When Strand was asked to be more specific, he refused. Hour, a poem from this collection, was featured in the millennial edition of the New Yorker. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

How to Follow a Pulitzer Prize?
This book has "collector" written all over it. Anne Galperin's design and the collage by Strand featured on the jacket make it the sort of book one buys as much for its appearance as for the writing itself. Turtle Point Press is a nice small press, and they've done a very fine job here; also, the sewn binding suggests the book is made to last.

CHICKEN, SHADOW, MOON & MORE consists of twenty lists, each titled with a different noun: "Chicken," "Shadow," "Moon," "Sun," "Lake," "Hour," and so forth. Each list contains two to three dozen sentences or (more often) sentence fragments, each containing the title word. Longtime readers of Strand will be amused but not surprised to find a list titled "Dog."

Judging from his comment on the book jacket, Strand (who won the Pulitzer Prize for his last collection of poems, BLIZZARD OF ONE) is reluctant to think of this as a poetry book, but that's essentially what it is. He's taking risks, but the risks often pay off: although some of the writing is flat, or simply odd, much of it is playful, evocative, and thought-provoking. As a whole the project is an uneven but interesting addition to his oeuvre. ... Read more

Product Description
Surviving Inside Congress provides essential and non-partisan educational information to new Congressional staff and fills in some gaps for those who are not so new to the Hill. Many books are written with advice for new Members of Congress, and no doubt they would benefit from this book. However, Surviving Inside Congress is the first publication of its kind to give staff detailed insight into what is expected and required of those who are the glue that holds the institution of Congress together.

Most new members of Congressional staffs are ill equipped to the meet the diverse and critical needs of elected officials and their constituents. There are no comprehensive training programs, and no curriculum that adequately addresses the multiple roles they will play and functions they will perform. This is due in large measure to the uniqueness of these roles and the environment in which their work will be done. As a result, the academic credentials and professional experience they bring with them will have little relevance to the tasks they re about to undertake.

Surviving Inside Congress tries to address these challenges. National Journal wrote: "The book gives plenty of tidbits on how congressional offices are staffed, parliamentary procedure, ethics guidelines, and the e-mail and snail mail systems." Elizabeth Kenigsberg of Roll Call wrote: "The book does a thorough job of explaining the history, rules and procedures of the legislative branch, and even provides an easy-to-use glossary and procedures manual... The book is perhaps most valuable for its understanding of the new challenges that legislative staff must face and its in-depth look into the ever-changing and increasingly rapid realm of Congressional communication... Special attention to political strategy and the undeniable challenges of working on Capitol Hill also play a critical role in the book, and the authors advice is easy to read and comprehend."

Founded in 1987, the Congressional Institute, Inc. is a not-for-profit 501(c)(4) corporation dedicated to helping Congress better serve its constituents and helping their constituents better understand the operations of the national legislature.

... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A "how-to" that is refreshingly non-mechanical
I agree with the other commentator who concluded that books on "how Congress works" tend to come either from academics who think politics can be diagrammed, or from malcontents happy to burn bridges while killing trees. Instead, what a young semi-idealist needs to know is how the House and Senate function and -- especially -- why they trounce the executive branch as a place to engage in politics.

This offering by Strand, Johnson and Climer transcends all those problems. It's warm without being hot, conversational without being gossipy, and "knowing" without being smug. There are just enough historical references for the big-picture reader, along with plenty of action items for those who manage rather than create. I worked on Capitol Hill during the Reagan Era but never knew where the term "pork barrel" started or that staff take the same Constitutional oath Members do. The book's three pages on mission statements are excellent (and will spare you from winding up with a three-page mission statement). So are the subtle distinctions made among various blue-chip print publications. And the authors still favor reporters over bloggers, a stance that shows why "content is not journalism."

Bottom line? If you work on Capitol Hill and are weary or stretched too thin, buy this book by Strand, Johnson and Climer to restore your energy and focus. Or, if you desire to "take root" on the Hill, "Surviving Inside Congress" will start your service sooner and -- most importantly -- allow it to avoid the extremes of Ideology on the one hand and too much "I" (egotism) on the other.

Hard for the cynics to believe, but survival can be reinforced by your nobler goals.

The Long and short of it
As a veteran of 15 years of Congressional staff work (Members's staff, Committee staff and Leadership Staff), and almost that many in lobbying; I have read, seen, and heard countless essays, speeches, and barroom conversations about working "on the Hill".

"Surviving Inside Congress" is the one book that does what everything else hasn't; give a full and readable guide to working in the Congress without falling into the Poli. Sci 101 ditch (boring and irrelevant);orstewing in the garden of cynicism (".. so I called the guy and got the deal done").

Strand, Johnson and Climer have put together a book that will not only save the new or aspiring Hill staffer several months or years of learning the ropes, but would be of value to any citizen who wants to go beyond a tabloid understanding of how their Congress works.

It's comprehensive, yet pithy.

I love this opening line to Chapter Five, "Genesis of a Law":

"Question: How does a bill become law?
Answer: Any way it can."

Youwill never hear that question answered that way in any Poli Sci course.And it is, of course, quite true.But, besides providing the pithy truth, the book provides the understanding of the formal procedures and informal processes in the Congress that make that statement so true.

Well done.

Terrific practical guide to working on Capitol Hill
Surviving Inside Congress is an excellent guide to the legislative branch.It is especially useful for people working on Capitol Hill, either as full-time staffers or interns.It takes a very practical view of the institution, with concrete advice on what to do, day by day.I advise many prospective interns and staffers, and I highly recommend this book to them. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Great book on a great poet
This is what a book of criticism should be like!It should help people read literature more deeply, provide more background for those who haven't "studied" a writer but want to have the insights of someone who has.I've loved Mark Strand's poetry for years.NOW I know WHY I love his poetry.Buy this book first and then go back and get Mark's books.You'll fall in love with America's best poet all over again! ... Read more