From Pulitzer Prize–winner Mark Strand comes an exquisitely witty and poignant series of prose poems. Sometimes appearing as pure prose, sometimes as impure poetry, but always with Strand’s clarity and simplicity of style, they are like riddles, their answers vanishing just as they appear within reach. Fable, domestic satire, meditation, joke, and fantasy all come together in what is arguably the liveliest, most entertaining book that Strand has yet written.
Almost Invisible: Poems
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Strand, a major poet of elegantly meditative inquiries, presents a collection of ethereal prose poems that read like koans and parables. People dissemble. Time is unruly. Inexplicable moments occur beside the “wrinkling, sorrowing sea.” Landscapes are bleak, wind-scoured, disorienting. “The gates to nowhere multiply and the present is so far away, so deeply far away.” Nothing is as it seems. Language is all we have to go on, and language is both path and shadow, rope and smoke. Strand’s titles suggest his by turns melancholy and ironic metaphysics: “Clarities of the Nonexistent,” “The Enigma of the Infinitesimal,” “Provisional Eternity.” The rueful poet of lonesomeness, nothingness, travels without arrivals, Strand is also sharply funny, foxily ribald, and teasingly surreal. There is beauty here, albeit fleeting and steeped in yearning, “like fireflies in the perfumed heat of a summer night.” And within these compact paragraphs, these brief, mysterious dream stories, the breathtaking cadence and resonant harmonics of words so precisely chosen and placed form exquisite, enrapturing, provoking, and shivery poems to be read and reread, lingered and marveled over. --Donna Seaman
About the Author
MARK STRAND is the author of twelve earlier books of poems. He is also the author of a book of stories, three volumes of translations, a number of anthologies (most recently 100 Great Poems of the Twentieth Century), and monographs on the artists William Bailey and Edward Hopper. He has received many honors and awards for his poems, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize (for Blizzard of One), the Bollingen Prize, and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 he was chosen Poet Laureate of the United States. He teaches at Columbia University.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Mark Strand's latest collection of prose poems (certainly not to be mistaken for "proems") makes me wonder if the general public has misjudged his work. One often hears readers dismiss his poetry (Blizzard of One: Poems, Selected Poems) as being bland or suburban.
If this exhilarating (and chilling) collection of 50 prose poems is an example, I'd like to read more bland and suburban poetry.
Reminiscent of Leopardi, with his own specific ars poetica of moonlit, harsh compassion for us confused earth dwellers, his style is a synthesis of Russell Edson and James Tate, with a touch of decadent nihilism a la Aloysius Bertrand. One of my personal favorites is definitely "The Social Worker and the Monkey":
"Once I sat in a room with a monkey who told me he was not a monkey. I understood his anguish being trapped in a body he detested. "Sir", I said, I think I know what you are feeling, and I would like to help you." "Treat me like a monkey," he said. "It serves me right."
This subtle and not so subtle commentary on our humanity (or determined lack thereof) is a brilliant commentary on man's perpetual quest to deny his own mortality, thereby causing more destruction and heartache than a frank admittance would.
This collection ranges from shades of dark to lighter shades of even darker. Recommended for fans of this much misunderstood art form, and fans of poetry in general.
If this exhilarating (and chilling) collection of 50 prose poems is an example, I'd like to read more bland and suburban poetry.
Reminiscent of Leopardi, with his own specific ars poetica of moonlit, harsh compassion for us confused earth dwellers, his style is a synthesis of Russell Edson and James Tate, with a touch of decadent nihilism a la Aloysius Bertrand. One of my personal favorites is definitely "The Social Worker and the Monkey":
"Once I sat in a room with a monkey who told me he was not a monkey. I understood his anguish being trapped in a body he detested. "Sir", I said, I think I know what you are feeling, and I would like to help you." "Treat me like a monkey," he said. "It serves me right."
This subtle and not so subtle commentary on our humanity (or determined lack thereof) is a brilliant commentary on man's perpetual quest to deny his own mortality, thereby causing more destruction and heartache than a frank admittance would.
This collection ranges from shades of dark to lighter shades of even darker. Recommended for fans of this much misunderstood art form, and fans of poetry in general.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By Settlesome
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is the Mark Strand I have missed, the mid-career Strand of The Continuous Life, narrative poetry, and the short prose pieces. Evocative, wistful, humorous. I feel so fortunate that he has published another book in this style. It will be treasured.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Rebekah
Format:Hardcover
Mark Strand's collection "Almost Invisible" introduces his plain, narrative language in the form of prose. Strands use of plainness in diction allows a reader to instantly grab hold of the messages of these prose poems and follow them until the end. Strand uses his work as a method of communication to the outside world, to the reader--he uses writing as a form of expressing internal feeling, and his poems in "Almost Invisible" do just that. In his poem "Poem of the Spanish Poet," Strand uses the metaphor of a tired American poet who pretends to be a Spanish poet as a way of conveying the dissatisfaction he sometimes feels when trying to produce his own work. By acknowledging the anxiety that comes with writing, Strand presents himself as a relatable and authentic source, which serves well amongst readers. In the poem "The Old Age of Nostalgia," Strand describes that feeling of being able to do or accomplish anything, and the hope and peace that feeling brings. Similarly his poem "In the Afterlife," evokes a powerful message of the loss of the past to present. The way in which Strand is able to take his personal experiences and make them acknowledgements of universal longing really sets his work apart. When you read this collection, you find that Strand has discovered a way to express things that are often left unexpressed--he is able to pinpoint little moments that make up a life and recreate their significance. "Almost Invisible" is an experience not to be missed.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's Mark Strand
If you are looking for a literary critique - I'm sorry, you won't find it here. I haven't read anything by Strand that I believe hasn't been outstanding. Read more
Published 28 days ago by Adam Shlager
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mr. Strand is not Invisible!
Mark Strand's prose poetry both confuses me and at other times I seem to know his intentions and results in the instant of reading it as when the time passes by, I seem to lose the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Richard C. Geschke
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful collection.
Mark Strand's collection of prose poems, Almost Invisible, is truly a gift to the contemporary canon of American poetry. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Lauren
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life in Rewind and Fast Forward
Mark Strand's Almost Invisible is an incredible read. The stark images coupled with surprising humor held me captivated with every page. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Kay
