In Memoriam: Mark Strand
Via the New York Times:
Mark Strand, whose spare, deceptively simple investigations of rootlessness, alienation and the ineffable strangeness of life made him one of America’s most hauntingly meditative poets, died on Saturday at his daughter’s home in Brooklyn. He was 80.
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Mr. Strand, who was named poet laureate of the United States in 1990 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1999 for his collection “Blizzard of One,” made an early impression with short, often surreal lyric poems that imparted an unsettling sense of personal dislocation — what the poet and critic Richard Howard called “the working of the divided self.”
I am so thankful my dear friend Kurt Brown hectored me for years to start reading poetry because since I’ve taken that up over the last decade, trying to read a poem each day, I have been consistently inspired through my reading and informed in how I approach screenwriting. Mark Strand is one of my favorites, a huge talent and will be missed. Here is one of his poems:
“The Remains”
by Mark Strand (1970)
I empty myself of the names of others. I empty my pockets.
I empty my shoes and leave them beside the road.
At night I turn back the clocks;
I open the family album and look at myself as a boy.
What good does it do? The hours have done their job.
I say my own name. I say goodbye.
The words follow each other downwind.
I love my wife but send her away.
My parents rise out of their thrones
into the milky rooms of clouds.
How can I sing? Time tells me what I am.
I change and I am the same.
I empty myself of my life and my life remains.
Articles on Strand:
You can read a Fall 1998 Paris Review interview with Strand here.
If you’re a fan of Mark Strand, please feel free to post them in comments.