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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.

Mark Strand

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Mark Strand
Age: 80 †
Born: 1934
Born: April 11
Died: 2014
Died: November 29
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More quotes by Mark Strand

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I believe that all poetry is formal in that it exists within limits, limits that are either inherited by tradition or limits that language itself imposes.
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...In another time, What cannot be seen will define us, and we shall be prompted To say that language is error, and all things are wronged By representation. The self, we shall say, can never be Seen with a disguise, and never be seen without one.
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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.
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Pain is filtered in a poem so that it becomes finally, in the end, pleasure.
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Even this late it happens: the coming of love, the coming of light.
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I don't really think it will make much difference to me when I'm dead whether I'm read or not . . . just as whether I'm dead or not won't mean much to me when I'm dead.
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A life is not sufficiently elevated for poetry, unless, of course, the life has been made into an art.
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.
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Nothing is the destiny of everyone, it is our commonness made dumb.
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.
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Once you start describing nothingness, you end up with somethingness.
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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 what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?
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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
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We are reading the story of our lives As though we were in it As though we had written it.
Mark Strand
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I have been eating poetry.
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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I haven’t met God and I haven’t been to heaven, so I’m skeptical.
Mark Strand
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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.
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