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.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Strand's 1980 Selected Poems has probably long had a home on most contemporary poetry readers' shelves. That book proclaimed Strand's status as a major poet writing in a sometimes surreal, humorous, oracular mode: If a man gives up poetry for power/ he shall have lots of power. This new volume extends that book to encompass the intervening two and a half decades and four collections of poems. From youthful masterpieces like the famous Keeping Things Whole (In a field/ I am the absence/ of field) through the haunting middle work of Darker (The future is not what it used to be./ The graves are ready. The dead/ shall inherit the dead) up to the self-conscious vignettes of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Blizzard of One (It was clear when I left the party/ That though I was over eighty I still had/ A beautiful body) and last year's Man and Camel (The wonder of their singing,/ its elusive blend of man and camel, seemed/ an ideal image for all uncommon couples), this important book offers the first panoramic view of the ongoing career of a poet who has mattered deeply to poets and readers alike. Strand's is one of the contemporary voices that will not fade. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
“The first panoramic view of . . . a poet who has mattered deeply to poets and readers alike. Strand’s is one of the contemporary voices that will not fade.” —Publishers Weekly
“New Selected Poems is a necessary book . . . Among the best work by any living poet.” —Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker
“New Selected Poems is a necessary book . . . Among the best work by any living poet.” —Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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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.
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.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By J. Farrell
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
By venar303
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is probably the best book of poetry I've ever stumbled upon.
After reading it, I am determined to meet this man, and I have been inspired to write more myself.
Just awesome.
After reading it, I am determined to meet this man, and I have been inspired to write more myself.
Just awesome.
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