HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

Collected Poems

by Mark Strand

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
983275,057 (4.06)2
"A collection of all of the poet Mark Strand's previously published poems."--
None
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 2 mentions

Showing 3 of 3
The ever astonishing Mark Strand. ( )
  archangelsbooks | Sep 9, 2023 |
One night, I found myself reading a lot of Mark Strand poetry—though I still wasn’t even halfway through his 500-page Collected Poems. I was dead tired, my eyes were shot, my back ached, but I was absolutely driven to read more. Though I had recently read Louise Glück’s huge book of poetry (Poems 1962-2012) and it had been a great experience, Mark Strand’s poetry is more up my street with his oddness and style. My appreciation for poetry has always been strong, but it is sky-high recently. Reading and wandering around in these huge books by Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winning poets is simply surreal and otherworldly at times. Last night, I was already feeling rather emotional, and I was shaken, amused, and drawn in so many directions, from so many poems.

Some of Mark Strand poems go on for pages and pages, but they were working for me in the dark of night. Sometimes, I was stunned and amazed with just a single line, a stanza, or a complete poem. It was one of my favorite and most intense experiences reading poetry by myself ever. Though I was marking the outstanding parts, I still had such a desire to read them to, and share them with my late wife. We were constantly sharing what impressed us in the books we were reading—that was our life together.

Strand wrote a beautiful long poem that was about life being a book, “The Story of Our Lives.” It’s about reading that book, but the line between what’s on the page and what’s actual living is intriguingly unexplained and unexplainable. I was rereading parts over and over for some time. I certainly applied the poem’s premise to my own life, as a vast amount of my life is absorbed by reading and writing the word, and sharing that life. The question of whether we’re living or reading, and of whether we can control any or all of our existence was a great place to be left pondering in the night.

All his thoughts got me to thinking in so many directions that I could never have remembered or recorded half of them. Mark Strand’s poetry is mostly very tight to my own feelings and I’m very grateful for experiencing such a strong connection there … and I can return there again whenever I pick this volume up again.
_____ ( )
  jphamilton | Feb 15, 2021 |
It's always interesting to have a collection that spans a poet's lifetime of work. While I didn't connect with most of it (for me, the clever, witty language seemed a screen that often blocked that connection instead of being a conduit), Strand was clearly an important poet, worthy of our attempted attention. ( )
  ShawIslandLibrary | Jul 26, 2016 |
Showing 3 of 3
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

"A collection of all of the poet Mark Strand's previously published poems."--

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (4.06)
0.5
1
1.5
2 1
2.5
3 2
3.5
4
4.5 1
5 4

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,242,160 books! | Top bar: Always visible