I would say that American poetry has always been a poetry of personal testimony. Mark Strand More Quotes by Mark Strand More Quotes From Mark Strand The future is always beginning now. Mark Strand marriage letting-go love We’re only here for a short while. And I think it’s such a lucky accident, having been born, that we’re almost obliged to pay attention. Mark Strand pay life thinking Even this late it happens the coming of love, the coming of light. You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves, stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows, sending up warm bouquets of air. Even this late the bones of the body shine and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath. Mark Strand stars air dream If every head of state and every government official spent an hour a day reading poetry we'd live in a much more humane and decent world. Mark Strand government reading world 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. Mark Strand permit imagine busy We are reading the story of our lives As though we were in it As though we had written it. Mark Strand our-lives reading stories Once you start describing nothingness, you end up with somethingness. Mark Strand nothingness describing ends A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art. Mark Strand life-is made art No voice comes from outer space, from the folds of dust and carpets of wind to tell us that this is the way it was meant to happen, that if only we knew how long the ruins would last we would never complain. Mark Strand space dust wind Each moment is a place you've never been. Mark Strand fresh-start stress time Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf. Mark Strand meat real giving I feel that anything is possible in a poem. Mark Strand anything-is-possible poetry feels Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure. Mark Strand pleasure pain poetry 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. Mark Strand imagination want lying When I walk I part the air and always the air moves in to fill the spaces where my body's been. Mark Strand space air moving For some of us, the less said about the way we do things the better. Mark Strand said way Ink runs from the corners of my mouth. There is no happiness like mine. I have been eating poetry. Mark Strand ink poetry running It came to my house. It sat on my shoulders. Your shadow is yours. I told it so. I said it was yours. I have carried it with me too long. I give it back. Mark Strand house giving long Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb. Mark Strand fate destiny dumb I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality. Mark Strand triumph personality thinking
