Synopses & Reviews
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet: an exquisitely witty and poignant series of prose poems, each one a precise drama revealing the receding vista of our lives.
In these sparkling, often hilarious short paragraphs, Mark Strand, writing as both a skeptic and a believer, comments on our foibles, our transient passions, and our dauntless pursuit of the beautiful. His paragraphs, sometimes appearing as pure prose, other times as impure poetry, are like riddles, their answers vanishing just as they come into view. Strand has the longest stare of any poet in our pantheon; nevertheless he loves to tread lightly, to be "almost invisible," while his writing remains indelible. It speaks of the human condition in all its folly, sorrow, and persistence, and does so with eloquence.
Synopsis
From Pulitzer Prize winner Mark Strand comes an exquisitely witty and poignant series of prose poems. Sometimes appearing as pure prose, sometimes as impure poetry, but always with Strand's clarity and simplicity of style, they are like riddles, their answers vanishing just as they appear within reach. Fable, domestic satire, meditation, joke, and fantasy all come together in what is arguably the liveliest, most entertaining book that Strand has yet written.
Synopsis
From Pulitzer Prize–winner Mark Strand comes an exquisitely witty and poignant series of prose poems. Sometimes appearing as pure prose, sometimes as impure poetry, but always with Strand’s clarity and simplicity of style, they are like riddles, their answers vanishing just as they appear within reach. Fable, domestic satire, meditation, joke, and fantasy all come together in what is arguably the liveliest, most entertaining book that Strand has yet written.
About the Author
MARK STRAND is the author of twelve earlier books of poems. He is also the author of a book of stories, three volumes of translations, a number of anthologies (most recently 100 Great Poems of the Twentieth Century), and monographs on the artists William Bailey and Edward Hopper. He has received many honors and awards for his poems, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize (for Blizzard of One), the Bollingen Prize, and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 he was chosen Poet Laureate of the United States. He teaches at Columbia University.