The Continuous Life: Poems
by Mark Strand
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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 show more wit. show lessTags
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Strand's sonnet-like free verse in this book gives an impression of solid mortality, the security and fragility of experience. I found these poems to be largely satisfying, though I found myself feeling a little impatient with his long poem "Grotesques." The prose poems included in this collection were mildly interesting (note of bias: I very often find prose poems to be pedantic or overwrought). This is a highly recommended read and would also be a worthwhile purchase.
Excerpt from "A.M.":
How well the sun's rays probe
The rotting carcass of a skate, how well
They show the worms and swarming flies at work,
How well they shine upon the fatal sprawl
Of everything on earth. How well they love us all.
Excerpt from "A.M.":
How well the sun's rays probe
The rotting carcass of a skate, how well
They show the worms and swarming flies at work,
How well they shine upon the fatal sprawl
Of everything on earth. How well they love us all.
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Harold Bloom - The Western Canon: D. The Chaotic Age
833 works; 24 members
Author Information
88+ Works 4,357 Members
Mark Strand was born on April 11, 1934 in Summerside on Prince Edward Island in Canada. Since his father's job resulted in many transfers, he spent his childhood in Cleveland, Halifax, Montreal, New York and Philadelphia and his teenage years in Colombia, Mexico and Peru. He received a bachelor's degree at Antioch College in Ohio in 1957, a show more bachelor of fine arts in painting from Yale University School of Art and Architecture in 1959, and a master of fine arts from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1962. He studied 19th-century Italian poetry in Florence on a Fulbright Grant from 1960-1961. His first poetry collection, Sleeping with One Eye Open, was published in 1964. His other works included Reasons for Moving, Darker, The Story of Our Lives, The Late Hour, A Continuous Life, Dark Harbor, and Collected Poems: Mark Strand. In 1990, he was named the fourth Poet Laureate of the United States. He received the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1993 and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1999 for Blizzard of One. In 1980, he felt that he had reached an impasse and stopped writing poetry for several years. During that time, he wrote several children's books including The Planet of Lost Things and Mr. and Mrs. Baby. He also wrote books on the painters EdwardHopper and William Bailey, and a collection of critical essays entitled The Art of the Real. He died of liposarcoma on November 29, 2014 at the age of 80. (Bowker Author Biography) Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mark Strand was born in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada, and was raised and educated in the United States and South America. He is the author of a book of stories, "Mr. and Mrs. Baby", several volumes of translations (Rafael Alberti and Carlos Drummond de Andrade among them), a number of anthologies (most recently "The Golden Ecco Anthology") and several monographs on contemporary artists (William Bailey and Edward Hopper). He has received many honors and grants for his poems, including a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 1990 he was chosen as Poet Laureate of the United States. He teaches in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. (Publisher Provided) Mark Strand's collection "Blizzard of One" was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. (Publisher Provided) show less
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- Canonical title
- The Continuous Life: Poems
- Original title
- The Continuous Life
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- Members
- 150
- Popularity
- 217,615
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.02)
- Languages
- English, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 5
