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In a field I am the absence of field. This is always the case. Wherever I am I am what is missing.

Mark Strand

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Mark Strand
Age: 80 †
Born: 1934
Born: April 11
Died: 2014
Died: November 29
Editor
Poet
Translator
Writer
Always
Wherever
Absence
Field
Case
Fields
Missing
Cases

More quotes by Mark Strand

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A great many people seem to think writing poetry is worthwhile, even though it pays next to nothing and is not as widely read as it should be.
Mark Strand
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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.
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I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.
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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.
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And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written.
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These wrinkles are nothing These gray hairs are nothing, This stomach which sags with old food, these bruised and swollen ankles, my darkening brain, they are nothing. I am the same boy my mother used to kiss.
Mark Strand
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There's a certain point, when you're writing autobiographical stuff, where you don't want to misrepresent yourself. It would be dishonest.
Mark Strand
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Poetry is about slowing down. You sit and you read something, you read it again, and it reveals a little bit more, and things come to light you never could have predicted.
Mark Strand
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I haven’t met God and I haven’t been to heaven, so I’m skeptical.
Mark Strand
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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
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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
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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
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Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.
Mark Strand
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She stood beside me for years, or was it a moment? I cannot remember. Maybe I loved her, maybe I didn't. There was a house, and then no house. There were trees, but none remain. When no one remembers, what is there? You, whose moments are gone, who drift like smoke in the afterlife, tell me something, tell me anything.
Mark Strand
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Life makes writing poetry necessary to prove I really was paying attention.
Mark Strand
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Once you start describing nothingness, you end up with somethingness.
Mark Strand
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I am not concerned with truth, nor with conventional notions of what is beautiful.
Mark Strand
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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
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To open the dictionary of the Beyond and discover what one suspected, that the only word in it is nothing.
Mark Strand
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The future is always beginning now.
Mark Strand