Chicken, Shadow, Moon & More [Hardcover]

Mark Strand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 22, 2000

Mark Strand, Former Poet Laureate, Pulitzer and MacArthur recipient "startles with his image evoking language" (Rain Taxi) in these vivid kaleidoscopic one line meditations.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Strand, a much honored poet, writes with deceptively offhanded elegance and wit that belie deep and haunting emotions and an acute attunement to the beauty and inexplicableness of life. No matter how spare his style, his work is lush with manifold meanings, a feat he performs to near perfection in this lithe collection, a book of lists, of list-poems. Even the table of contents can stand as a poem as it lists the subjects he uses as jumping-off points for entering the realm of the poetry, such as shadow, throat, hour, hand, island, chair, glass, dog, and sorrow. As Strand improvises on each theme in lean yet lyrical poems that resonate like koans with their odd, lovely, and teasing unions of reason and fancy, the full range of images, emotions, and thoughts associated with each object, act, or concept takes shape like a drawing, one line at the time. Startling visions, unexpected truths, an aura of wistfulness, and trills of playful humor waft from every page, and always the language is exact, musical, and transcendent. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Mark Strand’s most recent book is, more than mere poetry, just such a work of archaeology. -- Rain Tax, Spring 2001 --Rob O’Brien

Product Details

• Hardcover: 91 pages
• Publisher: Turtle Point Press (August 22, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188598345X
• ISBN-13: 978-1885983459
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,159,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars How to Follow a Pulitzer Prize?, May 21, 2001

By 

Robert M. West (Starkville, MS) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chicken, Shadow, Moon & More (Hardcover)

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.