Quotes by Mark Strand

Mark Strand

…In another time, What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted To say that language is error, and all things are wronged By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.

Errors

Language

Self

A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

People

Thinking

Writing

A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.

Art

Life Is

Made

A poem is a place where the conditions of beyondness and withinness are made palpable, where to imagine is to feel what it is to be. It allows us to have the life we are denied because we are too busy living. Even more paradoxically, poetry permits us to live in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves.

Busy

Imagine

Permit

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.

Imagination

Lying

Want

And Robert Lowell, of course – in his poems, we’re not located in his actual life. We’re located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life.

Courses

Facts

True Life

And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?

Children

Mother

Sleep

And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written.

Comfort

Culture

Entertainment

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious – never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

Expression

Self

Thinking

Each moment is a place you’ve never been.

Fresh Start

Stress

Time

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Absence

Afterlife

Air

America

American Poetry

Anything Is Possible

Art

Attention

Beautiful

Believe

Book

Bores

Boys

Burial

Busy

Children

Cities

Comfort

Concerned

Courses

Creative

Culture

Describing

Destiny

Dictionary

Differences

Dream

Dumb

Dust

Eating

Ends

Engagement

Entertainment

Errors

Expression

Facts

Fate

Feelings

Feels

Fields

Fire

Firsts

Form

Fresh Start

Garden

Giving

Government

Happens

Hard

Has Beens

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Quotes by Mark Strand

Mark Strand

…In another time, What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted To say that language is error, and all things are wronged By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.

A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.

A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.

And at least in poetry you should feel free to lie. That is, not to lie, but to imagine what you want, to follow the direction of the poem.

And Robert Lowell, of course – in his poems, we’re not located in his actual life. We’re located more in the externals, in the journalistic facts of his life.

And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?

And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious – never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

Each moment is a place you’ve never been.

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